Seminar Evening Launching the Trilogy with Rabbi Itai Lipschitz and Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- [0:01] Opening and apology for the absence
- [2:16] Rabbi Michael’s books and the dialogical approach
- [4:23] The question of authority and tradition in Torah
- [6:47] The role of the study hall and permissible theological discussions
- [12:30] Love and fear of God in everyday practice
- [15:26] Closing and invitation for audience questions
Summary
General Overview
Itai Shay opens the conference in place of Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler, who is in coronavirus isolation, and in place of Rabbi Yehuda Dehran, who is ill. He reads Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler’s opening remarks himself for the first time, while apologizing that he cannot stay for the entire conference. Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler blesses Rabbi Michael on the publication of the three books that summarize hundreds of columns and hundreds of hours of thought, and describes the trilogy as an honest dialogue between Hillel, who represents the Orthodox mainstream, and Rabbi Michael, aimed at addressing the gaps felt by perplexed people between logic and common sense and what appears to them to be Judaism. He places on the table three issues for discussion: authority and tradition, the boundaries of discourse in the study hall and the possibility of unusual theological conclusions, and the need not only to negate but also to offer a path and an educational model of love and fear of God, while extensively quoting Maimonides on the purposes of the Torah and providence in the land.
Opening of the Conference and Reading Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler’s Remarks
Itai Shay introduces himself as a teacher at the institute and as the one reading Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler’s remarks aloud. He explains that Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler is in coronavirus isolation and that Rabbi Yehuda Dehran, who was supposed to replace him, is ill, and he wishes Rabbi Yehuda Dehran a full recovery. He notes that he has just come from a funeral, so he is hearing Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler’s remarks for the first time while reading them, and he asks merely to stand there “like a scarecrow” and pass the baton onward according to the published speaking order.
Words of Thanks to Rabbi Michael Abraham and Presentation of the Trilogy’s Structure
Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler thanks Rabbi Michael for writing and publishing the three books that summarize hundreds of columns on his website and especially hundreds of hours of thought and reflection on issues that occupy many people. He says that Rabbi Michael Abraham put into writing thoughts that arose from personal contemplation and from many conversations with perplexed people who feel a great gap between their logic and common sense and what appears to them to be Judaism, and at times their very soul is bound up in the question. He describes the response offered in the books as a dialogue between Hillel, representing today’s Orthodox mainstream, and Michael, and emphasizes that this structure allows for great honesty and for grappling with arguments and counterarguments.
The Tradition of Dialogue in Literature and the Preference for “Reason”
Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler compares the dialogical method to earlier books such as the Kuzari, the haver and the king, Ramchal’s intellect and soul in Da’at Tevunot, the pious man and the sage in Mesillat Yesharim’s “Order of Debate,” and Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Nineteen Letters, with Naftali and Binyamin on opposite sides of the divide. He argues that unlike those works, which gave the last word to the seemingly less attractive side—the pious man, the soul, and the haver—Rabbi Mikhi repeatedly grants priority to reason and to the sage. He assumes there is no real contradiction between the two archetypes and no real need to choose between wicked and wise or believer and fool, and asks to place several issues on the table at the opening of the conference.
Authority and Tradition, Rationality and Customs
Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler states that two central issues at the heart of the book are authority and tradition, and asks to what extent the authority of sages of different generations, who disagree among themselves, is binding formally and substantively, and to what extent we are bound to tradition formally and substantively. In this context he lists the authority of sages, halakhic decisors, medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), customs, popular practices, and modes of thought that have shaped what the faithful among the Jewish people call Judaism, each according to his path and upbringing. He says that Rabbi Michael seeks a way to create a “diet” for all of these and to present a leaner value system that would allow common sense, logic, and standard life in a modern/postmodern world to fit much more easily with the way of Torah, but adds that this may create discomfort for those whose world of consciousness includes not only rationality but also the realms of emotion and soul. He stresses that the force of customs does not derive from Sinai but from the inherited practice of the Jewish people, and asks whether that makes them less important, bringing as a rhetorical question the tension between giving up Sabbath candle-lighting as a mere custom and its symbolic centrality, as opposed to the laws of selecting on the Sabbath, which are of Torah-level origin.
The Boundaries of Discourse in the Study Hall and the Space of Theological Disagreement
Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler states that the study hall is a place of ongoing discourse about Torah topics—conceptual, analytic, halakhic / of Jewish law, or theological—and asks whether there are issues that should not be opened, and whether there are conclusions that should be ruled out in advance. He says that in the academic world surrounding the study hall, the answer to these questions ought to be negative, but for the study hall the answer to both is definitely yes with regard to the normative and halakhic plane, whereas on the plane of thought things are more flexible. He cites Maimonides, who defines as a heretic one who thinks that the Holy One, blessed be He, has form and body, and notes that it seems the Raavad dissented from that definition. He notes that Maimonides established thirteen principles, but Rabbi Yosef Albo argued that only three are truly principles. He says that around the issue of providence, discussed extensively in the second book, there are many diverse opinions among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), and asks whether the option that “God has abandoned the land” also has a place, and whether the distinction between passive providence and active providence, along with its implications for prayer and for the standing and character of the Days of Judgment, can serve as a sufficient alternative, defining the role of the conference as discussing these questions and their practical significance.
The Responsibility to Build and Plant, and the Educational Aspect of Love and Fear of God
Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler says he has read most of the books and feels that a book that points to a necessary diet for Jewish thought and calls for necessary halakhic changes must not only negate but also offer a path. He cites Jeremiah’s commissioning prophecy, in which his tasks are described with six verbs, four of them negative, and the ending is “to build and to plant.” He presents the educational point and asks whether the books, beyond the diet they propose, also establish a model and tools for love of God and fear of Him. He quotes the verse, “Let not the mighty man glory in his might…” and brings a long quotation from Maimonides about a person being as one standing before a great king, about fear of God and shame before Him in real ways, about great sages refraining from going bareheaded because the Divine Presence hovers overhead, and about how the goal of the Torah is fear while the ideas teach love, emphasizing Maimonides’ wording: “Love comes through the ideas of the Torah… and fear comes through all the acts of the Torah.” He cites Maimonides’ conclusion regarding “in the land” as the axis of the Torah against the thought of the destructively mistaken who believed that His providence ended at the sphere of the moon and that the earth was abandoned, and concludes with Maimonides’ statement that human perfection is to attain knowledge of God as far as possible, to know His providence over His creatures, and to follow that understanding in paths of kindness, justice, and righteousness, imitating God’s actions. He states that the book could have been more complete had it offered practical lines for the figure of the modern believer, for the shape of Jewish law after the necessary changes, and for the character of the service of God in the realm of commitment to Torah and commandments and in the realm of character traits. He places before Rabbi Mikhi the task of building and planting after the negation has already been written, and asks whether there is a paved path for serving God and whether the next trilogy will address that.
Transition to Running the Conference and Closing Blessing
Itai Shay concludes by saying that he read the remarks as faithfully as he could, and invites Rabbi Mikhi to invite and introduce the speakers and run the conference according to the published order. He wishes everyone an enlightening evening, assumes that at some point audience questions will be allowed, and notes that at the end of the evening Rabbi Mikhi will answer all the questions that have not yet been answered.
Full Transcript
Hello everyone, and good afternoon. It will be good, with God’s help. This is an opening statement by Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler, to be read aloud by me. I teach here at the institute, I’m a faculty member here, my name is Itai Shay. And the additional constraint is that the person who was supposed to replace Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler was Rabbi Yehuda Dehran. So Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler is currently, like several hundred or more than several hundred people in our country, in isolation—coronavirus isolation. And Rabbi Yehuda Dehran, who was supposed to replace him, is sick. We wish him—Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler doesn’t need healing, he just needs time to pass, and with God’s help he’s not ill—Rabbi Yehuda Dehran is ill, and we wish him from here a full recovery. So when the baton reached me, I said to Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler: I’m asking not to replace you, but simply to stand here, with your permission, like a scarecrow, and read the remarks. And the additional constraint is that I’m coming right now from a funeral, literally just now, which means that when you hear the words Rabbi Yehuda Altshuler wrote, this will also be the first time I myself am hearing them. So I’m basically being tested in a cold reading, and maybe at the end, since after all I’m holding the microphone and I also teach here, maybe I’ll add a word or two, and after that the baton will immediately pass from hand to hand. I’m sorry that I can’t be at the whole conference, because I’m also teaching at this time. Welcome. So from here on, this is a quotation from Rabbi Yehuda. Welcome to all the participants. Unfortunately, I am prevented from taking an active part in this conference, but I would like to use the few minutes that have once again been granted to me to express first of all a blessing of thanks to the guest of honor, Rabbi Michael, for writing and publishing the three books that summarize hundreds of columns on his website, and especially hundreds of many hours of thought and reflection on issues that concern many fine people. But I would also like to share several additional thoughts. Rabbi Michael Abraham took the trouble to put into writing his thoughts on issues at the very heart of the world. These thoughts arose for him, as he describes in his book, out of personal reflection and out of many conversations with various perplexed people who felt too great a gap between their logic and common sense and what appeared to them to be Judaism, and at times their very soul and spirit were bound up in their question. The response in these books is built as a dialogue, a dialogue that takes place between Hillel, who represents the Orthodox mainstream of our day, and Michael—that is, Rabbi Michael. This structure allows for great honesty, grappling with arguments and counterarguments, and that is its uniqueness. The dialogical method has sustained many writers, beginning with the Kuzari, the haver and the king; Ramchal’s intellect and soul in Da’at Tevunot; the pious man and the sage in Mesillat Yesharim’s Order of Debate; Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch in Nineteen Letters, where Naftali and Binyamin stand on opposite sides of the divide. But whereas all of those gave the right to the final word to the seemingly less attractive side—the pious man, the soul, and the haver—Rabbi Mikhi has gone back and given pride of place to reason and to the sage. On the assumption that there is no real contradiction between these two archetypes and no real need to choose between wicked and wise or believer and fool, I would like to point to several issues that I would like to place on the table at the opening of this conference. First: two central issues, which are really one, stand at the heart of the book—authority and tradition. To what extent is the authority of the sages of the various generations, who disagree among themselves, binding formally and substantively? To what extent are we bound to tradition formally and substantively? Whether we are speaking of the authority of sages, halakhic decisors, medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim), customs, popular practices, and even modes of thought that shaped what the faithful among the Jewish people call Judaism, each person according to his own path, upbringing, background, style. Rabbi Michael seeks in his books a way to create a diet for all these things, and to present a leaner value system that would allow common sense, logic, and our standard conduct of life in a modern slash postmodern world to fit much more easily with the way of Torah. The tendency to reconcile and ground the Torah value-world in a way that does not contradict—and even fits—the rational world naturally helps and contributes to grounding the faith of those who seek that; but to the same extent it may create a feeling of discomfort, and perhaps even more than that, for those whose world of consciousness is based not only on rationality but also leaves room for the realms of emotion and soul, which are indeed more popular, but whose role in our decision-making as human beings is extremely prominent on every plane. The force of customs does not come from Sinai but from the inherited practice of the Jewish people. Does that make them less important? How many women would agree to give up lighting candles at the beginning of the Sabbath in favor of their husbands, even though this is only a custom? That’s a rhetorical question. It seems to me that many men and women would mark this custom as symbolizing the Sabbath for them much more than the laws of selecting, which touch on Torah-level layers. Second: the study hall, by its very nature, is a place where ongoing discourse takes place around Torah issues—conceptual, analytic, scholarly, halakhic / of Jewish law, or theological. Are there issues that should not be opened? Are there conclusions that should be rejected from the outset? In the academic world in which we live—and here I have to interject, “in which we live” means physically, literally: here, we are surrounded here by an academic world, this study hall is surrounded by an academic environment—so in the academic world in which we live, the answer to these questions and others like them ought to be negative. For the study hall, the answer to both is definitely positive with respect to the normative and halakhic plane. On the plane of thought, things are much more flexible. Maimonides would define as a heretic someone who thinks that the Holy One, blessed be He, has form and body, although it seems that the Raavad objected to this definition. Maimonides himself established thirteen principles, but Rabbi Yosef Albo argued that in his view only three of them are truly principles. Around the issue of providence, which is discussed extensively in the second book—I mean Rabbi Mikhi’s second book—there are many and varied opinions among the medieval authorities (Rishonim). But does that mean that the option that “God has abandoned the land” also has a place? Can the distinction that appears in the book between passive providence and active providence, and its implications regarding the issue of prayer and the standing and character of the Days of Judgment, really serve as a sufficient—or perhaps satisfying—alternative? It isn’t vocalized, so I’m asking the question both ways: a sufficient alternative or a satisfying one. It seems to me that the role of this gathering is, among other things, to discuss these questions and their practical significance. A third point: I have read most of the books—whoever doesn’t know, that takes a lot of time, reading most of the books—and I want to share a feeling that arose from the reading. A book that points to a needed diet for Jewish thought, in the author’s view, and calls for necessary halakhic changes, has a duty not only to negate but also to propose a path. In Jeremiah’s commissioning prophecy, the Holy One, blessed be He, defines his tasks with six verbs; four of them are negative, but the ending is to build and to plant. And here too is the last significant point I want to touch on, and it is connected to the educational aspect that, as head of the study hall, it is important to me to emphasize. For anyone who joined in the middle: I am not the head of the study hall; I’m reading the words of the head of the study hall. Do the books, beyond the diet they propose, also set up a model that offers tools for love of God and fear of Him? The Guide for the Perplexed deals quite a bit with weeding out mistaken conceptions. “Let not the mighty man glory in his might, let not the rich man glory in his riches, but let him that glories glory in this: that he understands and knows Me, that I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness in the land; for in these I delight, says the Lord.” And Maimonides expands there and states: “A person’s sitting, movements, and occupations when he is alone in his house are not like his sitting, movements, and occupations when he is before a great king. And his speech and the opening of his mouth as he wishes when he is with the members of his household and his relatives are not like his speech in the presence of the king. Therefore, one who chooses human perfection and to be truly a man of God will awaken from his sleep and know that the great King who hovers over him and is always attached to him is greater than any flesh-and-blood king.” Three dots in the quotation. “And know that when the perfected know this, fear, submission, dread of God, awe of Him, and shame before Him will come upon them in real, not imaginary, ways.” Three dots. “And it is that we are always before the blessed God and before His Divine Presence as we go and return. And our great sages, of blessed memory, would refrain from uncovering their heads because the Divine Presence hovers over and shelters a person. Reflect how He made clear to you that the intention of all these words of Torah is one goal: to fear the honored and awesome God. And that this goal is reached through actions—you know this from His saying in that verse: ‘if you do not keep to do.’ Thus it has been made clear that it comes through the actions, which are positive commandments and prohibitions. But the ideas taught us by the Torah—namely the apprehension of His blessed existence and His unity—those ideas teach us love, as we have explained several times. And you already know how greatly the Torah warned concerning love: ‘And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might,’ for the two goals, namely love and fear, are achieved through these two things.” Here it appears in bold letters: “Love comes through the ideas of the Torah, which include attaining the true reality of the existence of the blessed God, and fear comes through all the acts of the Torah, as we have explained.” And regarding the verses from Jeremiah, Maimonides concludes and explains: “And he added one matter of very great necessity, namely his saying ‘in the land.’” The verse says, “For I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness in the land, for in these I delight, says the Lord.” So: “And his saying ‘in the land,’ which is the axis of the Torah—not according to the thought of the destructively mistaken, who thought that His exalted providence ended at the sphere of the moon, and that the earth and what is in it was abandoned—‘the Lord has abandoned the land.’ It is not so, but rather as the master of all the sages explained to us: ‘The earth is the Lord’s.’ This means that His providence is also in the land according to what it is, just as He has providence in the heavens according to what they are. And this is his saying: ‘For I am the Lord who practices kindness, justice, and righteousness in the land.’ And afterward he completed the matter by saying: ‘For in these I delight, says the Lord.’ And he said: in kindness, in justice, and in righteousness I delight, says the Lord—meaning that My intention is that from you there should emerge kindness, justice, and righteousness in the land, as we explained concerning the thirteen attributes, that the intention is to imitate them and to walk in their ways. If so, the intention mentioned in this verse, and its explanation, is that human perfection—the thing in which one may truly glory—is to reach knowledge of God as far as one is able, and to know His providence over His creatures in their existence and governance, and to walk after that apprehension in ways by which one always intends to practice kindness, justice, and righteousness, so as to imitate the acts of God.” End of the quotation from Maimonides. It seems to me that the book could have been more complete if its author had also proposed practical lines for the figure of this modern believer, for the figure of Jewish law after it has undergone the necessary changes, and above all for the character of the service of God required of us in the realm of commitment to Torah and commandments and in the realm of character traits. It seems to me that the task now standing before Rabbi Mikhi is to build and to plant; the negation has already been written. And after it—can a path be drawn toward love of Him and fear of Him? Is there a paved road for serving God that can be offered to someone whose questions were answered by the book? Will the next trilogy deal with that? So that is the end of the remarks with which Rabbi Yehuda intended to open, and I read them as literally as I could. I’ll now invite Rabbi Mikhi to invite the speakers, introduce them, and the conference will proceed according to the published order of speakers, and I wish all of us an enlightening evening. I assume that at some point whoever is moderating will also allow questions from the audience, because at the end of the evening, if you noticed the order of things, Rabbi Mikhi will answer all the questions that have not been answered by then. So, good luck.