Symposium to Launch the Trilogy

Table of Contents

• [0:00] Opening and brief introduction
• [2:43] The debate over morality and Jewish law
• [5:22] Aggadah and Jewish law – nuances in life
• [6:33] Factual authority and the absence of authority
• [7:34] Separating formal authority from substantive authority
• [11:03] Destruction and rebuilding – the purpose of the second book
• [14:00] Miracle within nature – empty words
• [16:59] A sufficient explanation – a logical condition
• [20:28] Requests in prayer and the theological problems
• [25:24] Conclusion and notice in an additional email

Summary

General overview

The speaker tries, in a short time, to respond to comments from the discussion, correct misunderstandings regarding a temporary ruling versus enactments, and clarify his positions on the relationship between Jewish law, aggadah, and morality. He presents a central claim that Jewish law and morality are independent categories, and argues that there is no authority in matters of fact and Jewish thought, neither in a formal sense nor in a substantive sense. Therefore, it is permissible and even necessary to disagree with theological sources without feeling that one is being heretical. Later, he sharpens his position on providence and miracles, rejects the idea of “a miracle within nature” and of “double explanations,” and sets out a starting point according to which, without evidence, one should not attribute a hidden miracle or divine involvement to a particular event. He distinguishes between the question of whether God cares and the question of whether God intervenes, and in the end he responds to questions about faith / belief, prayer, knowledge and free choice, halakhic conventions, and religious education.

Temporary rulings, enactments, and institutional authority

The speaker corrects Rabbi Yaavetz’s remarks and argues that he did not write that a temporary ruling lasts forever, but rather that it can continue forever as long as every religious court in every generation confirms it. If they do not confirm it, it simply does not continue, without any need for the rules of “a religious court greater in wisdom and number.” He says the discussion of whether a temporary ruling expires in Maimonides is irrelevant to his point, and clarifies that fowl with milk and the second festival day observed in the Diaspora are enactments instituted by an authorized institution, not a temporary ruling. He distinguishes between a temporary ruling, which Maimonides compares to a religious court administering punishments not prescribed by the law, something that can be done by any religious court in any generation, and enactments, which he says fall under the authority of the Sanhedrin alone. He adds that according to Maimonides, “there is no ‘do not deviate’ without a Sanhedrin.”

Interpretive dynamism and the need for a religious court

The speaker accepts the claim about the dynamism of Jewish law and interpretive change, as mentioned earlier, and notes that he described this in his book. He adds that a religious court is not always needed in order to allow interpretive change, and presents this as a position he agrees with and has also written about.

Jewish law and morality as two independent categories

The speaker presents as the sole focus of his disagreement with Rabbi Yaavetz the question of whether morality is derived from the Torah, and claims: “Factually, nobody derives a moral principle from the Bible.” He rejects examples brought on the website and argues, based on many examples in his view and from the Torah itself, that Jewish law and morality are two categories that do not speak to one another. He says that even prohibitions such as murder and theft are not connected to morality but to Jewish law, and that a moral prohibition comes in addition to a halakhic prohibition, so these are two different things. He refers listeners to the beginning of the third book.

Aggadah, Bible study, and evaluating its contribution to understanding life

The speaker addresses Chayota’s comment and adds a reservation: aggadic passages that appear interwoven with Jewish law do provide more room for seeing value in studying them, but “very limited” value. He defines this as “Torah neglect in quality,” not “complete Torah neglect.” He argues that even in these places, the reader extracts from the aggadah his own agenda, and gives as an example a feminist reading of three female presences which, he says, for two thousand years did not lead others to similar conclusions. He accepts that Jewish law sits on top of life, and that life contains nuances which Jewish law, with its rigid rules, does not always capture. But he rejects the claim that aggadah helps with this any more than Dostoevsky or disciplines such as psychology and sociology. He adds that he is not a positivist in his halakhic outlook, and that there are really no positivists in Jewish law.

No authority regarding facts: formal authority versus substantive authority

The speaker declares that his starting point is: “There is no authority regarding facts,” not for a textual reason but for a conceptual one, and on that basis places most issues of Jewish thought in the realm of facts. He distinguishes between formal authority, which obligates because of an authorized institution such as the Knesset even if it is not right, and substantive authority, such as a doctor, whose opinion is accepted because he understands, though one rejects it if one reaches the conclusion that he is wrong. He argues that in the realm of thought there is no formal authority, because “you can’t demand that I think something because so-and-so said that’s what I have to think.” At most there is only the consideration of substantive authority, but even that he denies as binding, and says one needs to burst the “balloon” of granting authority to theological sources.

His attitude toward Maimonides and the doctrine of negative attributes, and the purpose of the destruction in the second book

The speaker says, “I don’t think Maimonides knew something that I don’t know,” in the sense that Maimonides has no binding authority, even if he was wiser. Everyone uses his own head and accepts only what he is convinced by. He clarifies that his treatment of the doctrine of negative attributes is not criticism of Maimonides himself, but criticism of those who see Maimonides as a source of authority. He argues that if the simple meaning of Maimonides’ words seems to him to be “nonsense,” he does not accept it, “and there is no principled problem with that.” He says that in the second book his main goal was “to destroy,” in order to free people from the distress of feeling intellectually subordinate to the Kuzari, to Maimonides, to Maharal, to Rabbi Kook, and others. He describes this as “destruction whose purpose is construction” and as “liberation and destruction,” while acknowledging that this sometimes has harsh consequences, such as people who claimed he influenced their decision to leave.

Telling the truth versus “holy lies”

The speaker declares that his policy is to say what is true and not to use “holy lies,” neither tactically nor as a matter of value, and argues that this is neither right nor useful. He says that if someone asks him not to say the truth, “the burden of proof is on him.”

Miracle, providence, laws of nature, and refuting “a miracle within nature”

The speaker argues that “a miracle within nature” is “mere empty words” and that “there is no such thing.” He explains that divine intervention that changes an outcome means a deviation from the laws of nature. He emphasizes that the laws of nature are the work of the Holy One, blessed be He, and cites the Derashot of Ran on “for it is He who gives you the power to achieve wealth,” but defines a deviation as the non-application of the fixed law. He rejects the idea of a “double explanation” and argues that an explanation is, in essence, a sufficient condition, and therefore two independent sufficient conditions are not logically possible. He illustrates this with Newton’s apple as against a theological explanation in terms of sin. He connects this to the determinism of the laws of physics, and adds that quantum theory also does not solve the problem in this context, according to his explanations in the book.

A hidden miracle, burden of proof, and prayer and requests

The speaker says that a hidden miracle means a deviation from the laws of nature that we do not notice. He is willing to say, “It could be,” but determines that the starting point is that things happen according to the laws, and the burden of proof rests on whoever claims otherwise. He distinguishes between prayer and requests within prayer, and argues that the problem lies with the requests. He adds that if he were to reach the conclusion that there is no involvement at all, “I would remove a few blessings from the Amidah,” but he has not reached that conclusion. He suggests that one possible proof of a hidden miracle would be when a prophet says that an event that looks natural is a miracle, and clarifies that even in their time, without the word of a prophet, he would not have accepted attributing it to a miracle. Today, by contrast, he has no way of knowing that, except perhaps through statistics, which he leaves as a separate dispute. He argues that there is no proof that the establishment of the State of Israel is a miracle, and explains that prophecy about a future event is not a statement that it is a miracle, but could stem from understanding “such a culture” and “such a commandment” and “our mode of conduct.” He concludes that there is almost never evidence, and therefore his assumption is that in a given event there is no miracle.

“There are those swept away without justice” and the degree of involvement

The speaker says he wants to restore the possibility that not “everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He” in the sense of direct causation of every event. He presents the option that “He didn’t do it,” but rather that a person died “because he was sick or because something struck him.” He quotes, “That’s what the Rosh writes in Chagigah: ‘there are those swept away without justice,’” and notes that sources for this appear among the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and even in Talmudic passages. He argues that he has no indication of involvement, and therefore assumes it is rare even if it exists.

Questions about “the additional email”: caring versus intervening, and serving God

The speaker clarifies that he did not say that nothing interests the Holy One, blessed be He; on the contrary, “everything interests Him.” He separates the question of whether it interests Him from the question of whether He intervenes. He presents a conception according to which we are “grown children,” so “Father doesn’t hold their hand and do the work in their place,” but there is still “a right way to act and a wrong way to act” and goals that have been set. He argues that serving God is not supposed to be “give and take,” but a commitment because “that is the truth,” and says that even if there is benefit in it, he does not base the obligation on that.

Belief in the Bible, a change in policy, and prophecy and miracles

The speaker says that he believes in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and therefore believes that once there were prophecy and open miracles and today there are not. He explains that this is a description of reality, of “His policy” as he sees around him, where everything is conducted according to the natural order. He rejects the claim that the basis is only the explanation that “the Holy One, blessed be He, changed His mind,” and presents that as an explanation offered after the practical distinction observed in reality. He even adds that he can offer an explanation for why this happened. He mentions, in the name of Rabbi Medan, a description of a process during the Second Temple period in which the Holy One, blessed be He, “went into disengagement,” including that “the ten miracles that had been in the Temple were not present in the Second Temple,” and he accepts this description as a helpful supplement.

Knowledge and free choice as a logical problem

The speaker says that the contradiction between foreknowledge and free choice is a logical problem, not a physical one. He refers to Or HaChaim on the portion of Noah, who claimed that the Holy One, blessed be He, “hides the knowledge from Himself,” and criticizes this as logically contradictory, unless the meaning matches his own formulation. He notes precedents such as the Shelah HaKadosh and the principle of charity, which prefers a consistent interpretation.

The authority of the Talmud as a convention, and later halakhic conventions

The speaker is asked about halakhic conventions such as the ban of Rabbenu Gershom, and explains that even the authority of the Talmud stems from convention, because the amoraim were not ordained and were not a Sanhedrin, and yet “the inability to disagree with the Talmud” derives from accepted convention. He states that if there were full halakhic convention regarding something else, he would relate to it in the same way. He distinguishes this from thought, where conventions are not relevant from his point of view.

Religious education, the target audience of the book, and the claim about “psychology”

The speaker says that his arguments are not intended to persuade atheists, and he estimates that most of them will not be persuaded, but argues that the book is addressed to believers troubled by questions. He explains that religious education opens up options that a person might not have noticed without that education, and argues that not everything one is educated into is an illusion, and that education is not necessarily “programming,” but rather opening up a possibility of seeing that would not otherwise have become available.

We don’t have much time left. What I’ll try to do, if you’ll allow me—say something like ten minutes, until six-thirty—I’ll try to address everything, well, not everything, but at least some of the things that came up here. And afterward we’ll open it up for another ten minutes or so from the audience—after all, you came, so not for nothing. I’ll start maybe with a few things that are simpler. First of all, what the Rabbi—Rabbi Yaavetz—said, I want to correct. That is, maybe in the parts of it you didn’t read—where is he? Ah—maybe in the parts you didn’t read, but I did not write that a temporary ruling is forever. What I wrote is that a temporary ruling can extend forever. It requires the approval of every religious court in every generation, and as long as they approve it, it remains valid. The difference is that if they do not approve it, it is nullified even without the rules of a court greater in wisdom and number, or all the other rules, because it does not need to be repealed; it only needs not to be continued. And therefore this whole discussion about whether a temporary ruling ends in Maimonides is irrelevant. I’m not talking at all about fowl cooked in milk. Fowl in milk is an enactment; it is not a temporary ruling at all. Fowl in milk is an enactment of the Sages, who prohibited fowl in milk. And since this is an enactment by an authorized institution, it does not enter this category at all. An enactment by an authorized institution can be something permanent. Positive action, passive omission, with the definitions of… I think the argument is in place, because a temporary ruling also is not forever. A temporary ruling means: tell me what the problem is now. There’s no problem—now it’s clear. I didn’t write otherwise. As long as… what? Then I guess we don’t have some huge disagreement. Okay. The second day of a Jewish holiday in the Diaspora was instituted by an authorized institution. Again—that’s the mistake. The second day of a Jewish holiday in the Diaspora was instituted by an authorized institution; it’s not a temporary ruling. That’s exactly the difference. A temporary ruling—Maimonides, later in that same Jewish law that you read, compares it to a religious court that administers punishments not prescribed by the law. A religious court that administers punishments not prescribed by the law—that can be any religious court in any generation; it does not need to be the Sanhedrin. Enactments—only the Sanhedrin. There is no “do not deviate” without a Sanhedrin, at least according to Maimonides. These are two completely different things. I explain this at length in the book. Those are the simpler points.

Another point: the dynamism of Jewish law and interpretive change, as you mentioned—I think these things are described in my book, and I also think you don’t always need a religious court for that matter. I think on that issue I completely agree, and I wrote that too. In the end, the only point in Rabbi Yaavetz’s talk where we really disagree—and that’s why I opened with that, because there it was relatively easy for me to respond—the only point where we disagree is really morality. That’s the question of whether we derive morality from the Torah. On that issue one can argue whether that is proper or not, but it seems to me that on the facts it is hard to argue. We don’t. That is, as a matter of fact, nobody derives a moral principle from the Bible. There were examples—one second, I’m just trying—there were examples people tried to raise, also on the website; one of them, I think, you sent as well—examples on the site. I don’t accept them. I think that’s incorrect. I brought many examples showing that this does not exist. I also show from the Torah itself, I think quite clearly—and I discuss this at length at the beginning of the third book, it didn’t really come through here—that these are two independent categories, Jewish law and morality. They do not talk to each other. Completely. Independent. Including the prohibitions against murder, theft, whatever you want—it has nothing to do with morality at all. And there is a moral prohibition—it’s unrelated. The Torah prohibition comes to add a halakhic prohibition. These are two different things. So that’s the only point where I feel I have a disagreement with Rabbi Yaavetz. These things can be read at the beginning of the third book.

I’ll move to Hayuta, because that too is relatively easy for me to respond to. In fact, I think in the book itself I added some qualification, really in light of your comment during our work on aggadic passages that appear interwoven with Jewish law—that aggadic passages that appear interwoven with Jewish law do leave more room to see value in studying them, though very limited. It’s neglect of Torah study in quality; it’s not total neglect of Torah study. Usually I don’t accept that comment either. I qualify my radical expressions, but not entirely. I think that overall, even from those places, in the end you are extracting what your own agenda says. That is, not for nothing did you find the three female presences in that passage, while somehow over two thousand years everybody read these aggadic passages and nobody derived feminist conclusions from them. And I’m not saying you’re wrong. I’m only saying it depends very much on the initial assumption, and the moment the aggadic passages always serve me—and the Hebrew Bible too, by the way, that’s my claim regarding Bible study—the moment the aggadic passages always serve me to reinforce what I already think anyway, I don’t see great value in that. Sit and receive reward, okay, that’s fine. So on this point it seems to me I’m prepared to qualify slightly in the context of aggadic passages interwoven with Jewish law.

One more comment: what you said, that Jewish law rests on life, and in life there are nuances that Jewish law with its rigid rules does not capture—I completely accept that. What I don’t accept is that aggadic literature helps me with that more than Dostoevsky. That is, to decipher the complexities of life, I can decipher them in the psychology department, I can decipher them in the sociology department, in aggadic literature, in literature, in whatever we want—and I completely agree. I am not a positivist in my halakhic conception. I do not think that rigid application of rules—actually I don’t think anyone is really like that. There are people who have a positivist ethos, but there aren’t really positivists in Jewish law. Therefore awareness of the nuances and of the continuum that exists, and that it isn’t sharp and not simply one or zero—I also wrote not a little about that, and I think on this issue I completely agree. The only thing I disagree with is that Jewish law—rather, aggadic literature—contributes to this more than a thousand other disciplines or writings.

And that brings me to the two middle talks, where of course the situation is much more complicated and I won’t really be able to address it; I’ll try somewhat in general lines. My starting point is that there is no authority regarding facts. On that there was even agreement, I think. There is no authority regarding facts at the conceptual level—not because authority simply doesn’t apply to facts and I have some verse-based derivation that here there is no authority. Say, Maimonides writes that there is no halakhic ruling in matters of belief, except that for some reason he establishes the Thirteen Principles. But he establishes them in three places in his Commentary on the Mishnah. Yet there one could understand: there is no halakhic ruling because it does not pertain to practice; there is no point in deciding. Not because one could not decide. If, hypothetically, “do not deviate” had also introduced that authority, then in principle one could have understood from Maimonides that it exists here too. I want to make a more radical claim. That is, I want to claim that conceptually one cannot speak about authority in the context of facts and in the context of issues in Jewish thought, most of which deal with facts. Maybe not all of them, but most deal with facts. And the reason is very simple. I distinguish between formal authority and substantive authority. Formal authority is authority that I must accept by virtue of the fact that the statement comes from an authorized institution, as in parliament. Parliament legislates something; that doesn’t mean it’s right. Usually what it legislates is probably not correct. But since parliament is the authorized institution, what it says is binding; that is called formal authority.

There is substantive authority—what I called substantive authority means something like a doctor. I go to a doctor because he understands things I do not understand. So I ask him what medicine to take, what surgery to do, what procedure, and then I say: I accept it—why? Because he understands, because he is right. The practical difference is that if I nevertheless reach the conclusion that he is not right, I won’t accept it. Right? Of course I’ll think a lot before I reach that conclusion, because I’m not an expert. So I’ll ask others, I’ll check books, I don’t know, I’ll read—everyone by his own methods. But if I reach the conclusion that he is not right, I won’t accept it, because he has no formal authority. No one will sue me because I didn’t obey the doctor. It is advisable for me to listen to him because he understands. Okay? These two types of authority are really what runs through the second book. Because my claim is that in the realm of thought there is neither type of authority. Not formal authority, because formal authority is not defined with respect to facts and issues of thought. It is not defined. I didn’t explain that before; I’ll explain in one sentence: it is not defined because you cannot demand that I think something because so-and-so said that’s how one must think. You can’t demand that of me. What one can say is that if he is such a great expert, like a doctor for instance in medicine, then it’s worth listening because he is probably right. But for that, of course, he has to convince me that he is a great expert. So therefore what is relevant here is only substantive authority and not formal authority.

And here of course comes my heretical position, or the dismissive one in certain formulations—I’m not sure I would accept that wording, but yes, perhaps some of the responsibility for a certain moderation of my phrasing is mine, so apparently I didn’t manage to erase everything. But I want to say why it was there. It was there because my goal was to burst this balloon. Therefore there really was a kind of journalistic aim; I fully agree. That is, in the end, my feeling is that part of the stagnation in the field of thought—not in Jewish law, in thought—stems from this mistake that people grant authority to sources of thought. I do not accept that, neither formal authority nor substantive authority. And as was quoted, I do not think Maimonides knew something that I don’t know. Not because he wasn’t wise—he may even have been wiser than I am, very likely he was wiser than I am. But on the substantive level he used his head and reached conclusions—fine; I too can use my head and reach conclusions. If I am convinced, I am convinced; and if not, then not. By the way, since we’re talking about this, the doctrine of negative attributes was not a critique of Maimonides. I did not write it as a critique of Maimonides. I wrote it as a critique of those who see Maimonides as an authoritative source. I claimed: maybe Maimonides is right, maybe Maimonides is not right. I think he is not right. But maybe you’ll have some wonderful explanation that resolves my difficulties—which aren’t all that complicated there, all in all—and then maybe I’ll be persuaded and you’ll explain Maimonides. What I claim is that if I think he is not right, and the plain meaning of his words seems nonsense to me, then for that reason I do not accept it. And there is no principled problem with that. That’s the claim.

What I then said positively—that was the negative part. People asked whether I also build or only destroy. So I said: my main goal in the second book was to destroy. Absolutely, out on the table. In the first and third books, no; in the second book, yes. My goal there was only to destroy. Beyond that, as a goal, in the book itself there are also parts that build, but they build some kind of minimal alternative—a minimal alternative—which I think is correct. And of course, just as Maimonides has no authority over me, certainly I have no authority. But in this matter it really does not belong to the primary purpose. My main goal was destruction in this regard. Because I think this is destruction for the sake of building. It is destruction that gets people out of the closet—or out of their distress; people talked about that—and I meet these people in their hundreds if not more, people who are in distress because it is obvious to them that they cannot disagree with the Kuzari, or with Maimonides, or with the Maharal, or I don’t know, with Rabbi Kook, or I don’t know exactly whom—but they don’t agree with them. So either they are heretics, or they go home—that is, they abandon things. And my goal was to free this up. The main goal was liberation and destruction. That’s the point. Out on the table. And I think this destruction is very, very important.

This destruction, by the way, for some people unfortunately—and I also wrote this on the website—it’s a little hard for me; sometimes it has difficult consequences. There are people who say I influenced their decision to leave. Rabbi Moshe, I think, mentioned some such cases; I also know a few such cases. Yes, there were such people. They told me. And I struggled a lot, even before I decided on this policy of publishing, but in the end—again, naturally that’s not really proof—but I get many more voices from people for whom these things liberated them and prevented them from leaving because of these distresses. Now the question is whether to say something that helps these people and harms those people. I say: you can say it this way or that way, but if that’s the truth then first of all I say the truth. Anyone who wants to tell me not to say the truth bears the burden of proof. So therefore for me, and in general I think the correct policy—certainly in our generation—is to say what is correct, not to use holy lies. That was one of my first columns on the site. I do not believe in holy lies, neither tactically nor ethically. I think it is wrong and I think it also does not help. For some reason, it fits—not always, it doesn’t have to fit—but it fits.

As for the issue of providence—here this really is a heavy topic, and I’ll refer you to the discussions in the latest column on my website, where Rabbi Moshe and I are also conducting a discussion, and on his site too there are responses—not mine, but his responses appear in greater detail on his site. I definitely think it is worth reading. I want to say two or three things, just so that this won’t sound as terrible as it may come out from what I heard here, at least. First of all, when people speak of a miracle within nature, that’s just empty verbiage. There is no such thing. There is no such thing. Everyone repeats it—there is no such thing. And Rabbi Yehuda brought the argument; I think it is a simple argument. When the Holy One, blessed be He, intervenes in something, that means that if He had not intervened, X would have happened and I would have been sick, say, and I ask God to heal me—that is, to intervene and cause me to recover. That means that without God’s intervention one thing would have happened—that’s the laws of nature—and God intervenes and changes the result. To change the result means to deviate from the laws of nature. Not everything is a deviation from the laws of nature. If I build an airplane, I’m not traveling… No, that’s not a deviation from the laws of nature. What? There is an explanation for it within the laws of nature. What do you mean? It’s that kind of thing. Same thing— aerodynamics is part of the laws of nature. No, but what does that have to do with it? But it is part of the laws of nature; aerodynamics is part of the laws of nature. What? You studied physics with me, Rabbi Yehuda. That’s my next sentence.

A sentence that also came up in Rabbi Moshe’s words. Look, I wrote at length in the first book that the laws of nature are the work of the Holy One, blessed be He. There’s the famous Derashot HaRan that says, “For it is He who gives you the power to achieve wealth”; he is basically saying that “my power and the might of my hand” is not an incorrect expression; it is a correct expression. But you need to remember that your “my power and the might of my hand” was given to you by the Holy One, blessed be He. And in that sense He gave you the power to achieve wealth. When I speak about deviation from the laws of nature, I mean that the fixed law does not hold. That is, I am not saying that the law is not, at its root, the work of the Holy One, blessed be He. There was now one thing like that in the course of events. Wait, wait, one second, one second, one second—I have—just a second. What I want to say is that this claim of double explanation, which also came up in different forms in both speakers, there is no such thing. I explained this… wait, one second, one second, one second—wait, I’ll get to it. The section in the second book, in the quartet, “Those Who Are Here and Those Who Are Not Here,” devotes an entire part to explanations of this kind of double explanation. I divide there into several kinds of double explanations. And one must understand that an explanation, in essence, is a sufficient condition. This is a philosophical definition agreed by everyone. There is a debate whether it must be necessary and sufficient or only sufficient, but sufficient it must be. “Sufficient” means that if the cause is present, the effect must follow. That is what it means to be sufficient. Okay?

Now if I believe in the laws of nature as explanations, that means the laws of nature are a sufficient explanation. Sufficient… wait, wait, wait, one second, I just want to finish the framework. A sufficient explanation means that given the cause, the effect must follow. Okay? When you say there is a double explanation, you are saying something impossible. It is impossible because you are saying there are two independent sufficient conditions. There is no such thing in logic. This is the ABC of logic. There are no two independent sufficient conditions. There is no such thing. It cannot be that the apple falls on Newton’s head because Newton sinned. That’s the theological explanation—he didn’t turn the other cheek, right? So then it doesn’t matter whether the connection between the apple and the tree was strong or weak; it is supposed to fall, because the theological explanation is a sufficient condition. On the other hand, the physical explanation says that if the connection to the tree does not withstand the force of gravity, the apple will fall whether he sinned or not. And that too is a sufficient condition. There cannot be two explanations that are both sufficient conditions unless one is an expression of the other. The connection there between the apple and the tree… it doesn’t help at all; I explain that in the book too. It doesn’t help at all because his getting there is also a physical event in the world. A person’s free will… wait—and free choice is also not the Holy One, blessed be He; it’s his own choice. You’re pushing the question one step back. What caused Newton to get there? You’re saying what caused Newton to get there was his sin. So he got there and then the apple fell on his head because of the laws of gravity. But I ask: what caused him to get there—that too is a physical event. And if what caused it was the Holy One, blessed be He, then it’s not his decision. If it’s his decision, then it’s not the Holy One, blessed be He. So divine involvement here must be—you can retreat backward wherever you want—at some point it has to be. I didn’t say there isn’t any. I said it has to be. Wait, the probability of natural determinism in such a way that there are two possibilities that excludes… right, among other things. Okay, very good.

Okay, so what I really want to say—here, let me just—I really have to finish. I want to say just one thing, or two things. So really on this issue it enters into the determinism of the laws of physics, and I talked about that. And even though in quantum theory too there is no determinism in the usual sense, that does not help in this context, and I explain that in the book too. And one final point that I nevertheless want to say is about hidden miracles, what Rabbi Moshe added here. So from my point of view, a miracle within nature—there is no such thing. It’s empty words. It means nothing. A hidden miracle means deviation from the laws of nature, only we don’t notice; that is, it is concealed. Okay? In such a case it could be—and in the book I also say that it could be. Now the question moves into what Rabbi Moshe said earlier. The question is: what is the starting point? That is, from my perspective there could be a hidden miracle. In principle I cannot prove that there isn’t, and of course no one can prove that there is. There is no such thing. That is the whole essence of a hidden miracle; otherwise it would be revealed. Okay? Now the question is what I assume. For me, if I believe in the laws of nature—as a physicist, though you don’t have to be a physicist for this—if you think the laws of nature work, that means your simple assumption is that things happen according to the laws. The simple assumption, it seems to me, of every person who looks at reality. Therefore my claim—and yes, it’s very blunt, and you can see the details in the debates I mentioned earlier—is that the burden of proof lies with the one who claims it is not so. It may be that it is not so, and therefore in the end, by the way, I did not write what to do with prayers, but rather what to do with the requests in prayer. That is not the same thing. With prayers I have no principled problem, except that it’s a bit boring. I am talking about the requests in prayer. The requests in prayer are the problem. There a problem arises vis-à-vis the theology I am describing here.

Now—but one second—the requests. What I only want to say is that really, at the principled level, if I reached the conclusion that there is no such thing as divine involvement, then one could not say those requests. As the Talmudic text in tractate Yoma says—Rabbi Amital always quoted it—yes, our God, whose seal is truth, does not want people to lie about Him. That is, even if there is something that obligates you to say it, if you cannot stand behind it, you cannot say it. That is not prayer. You can say it outwardly, but it is not prayer. Therefore if I reached the conclusion that this really does not exist, I would remove a few blessings from the Amidah. I have not reached the conclusion that it exists. For me the starting point is that it is not so. If there is proof, I’m prepared to accept it. Now people accuse me—look, but what kind of proof could there be, that a transparent hand would come out of heaven and say, yes indeed? There cannot be proof, so what am I supposed to do? From my perspective the assumption is that one needs proof in order to say that something did not happen naturally. What could count as proof? So when they get to Joseph or to events in the Scroll of Esther, they say: fine, if a prophet tells me that behind an event that seems natural there is really a hidden miracle and not a natural event, I accept a prophet. It is written in the Torah—prophecy exists. There is prophecy, no problem. That proves nothing for today, because even in their own time, if the prophet had not told them that, I would not have agreed with someone who said it was a miracle. Even in their own time, no. The question is: how do I know today that a particular event is a miracle, an intervention of the Holy One, blessed be He? I have no way to know that, except maybe statistics, and that is already another debate, together with the statistical studies.

All the prophets and all the recent talk about the State of Israel—they said that in this and that—Rabbi Yaavetz. Aside from the books, aside from the books—there too I explain it, also on the website, I explain it; it’s worth reading. There too I explain this matter: even the establishment of the State of Israel, I claim, is not proof that it was a miracle. But we said that if a prophet says so, then it’s a miracle, and the prophet did say so. The prophet did not say that. He did. No. I explain there—too bad—he did not say that. What he said was that it would happen. He did not say: this is a miracle. He can know in advance that it will happen because we have such a culture and such a commandment and we have a Torah and our conduct. One who knows and tells the generations from the beginning can say that it will happen—that’s all. Nothing happened. “It is I who give you the power to achieve wealth”—it is exactly the same thing. So that is no proof at all. And therefore I return to the starting point, and here I’ll finish. To claim there is a hidden miracle one needs proof, and there is no proof. I agree, as Rabbi Moshe said, there is not—I can hardly imagine a situation in which someone could bring me proof. Therefore my starting point is that wherever I have no proof—and that is almost everywhere—it is not there. That is my assumption. On the other hand, I do not say it does not exist at all. I’m talking about a particular event: is it a miracle or not? No. Does that mean it does not exist at all? If I reached the conclusion that it does not exist at all, I would not say the requests in prayer. I don’t know—maybe it does exist, and I do not track every electron, as was said here, and therefore I can still say the prayer. But it does have implications, and with this I’ll finish. One implication is that I apply this only where all natural options have been exhausted, like the passage from Rabbi Kook that I brought in the previous-to-last column—whoever read it—only where I have no way to deal with it myself. Otherwise, all requests on behalf of others who are in distress—not for me—there is no point in doing that.

A second point, an important point, which somehow passed here as self-evident, and in my eyes this was perhaps a task no less important than what I’m talking about here, is that what is constantly on people’s lips—including rabbis, including everybody—is that everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He. Not that He has involvements here and there. When someone dies, they ask why this happened; we do not understand—He doesn’t work for us, we do not understand why. What is the assumption? That He did it; we just don’t understand why. But there is another option: He didn’t do it. He died because he was sick or because something hit him. That is what the Rosh writes in tractate Hagigah: “there are those swept away without justice.” I bring that there in the book—ideas that already appear among the medieval authorities (Rishonim), and even in the Talmudic texts. Therefore this conception—this was first of all something I wanted to restore, and it seems to me that on this issue there was some agreement here, that’s how I think at least. So that’s already something. As for the question of the degree of involvement, there I got to all the examples with Nachshon Wachsman and so on, and we won’t go back again to that debate. I have no indication that there is, so I assume it is very rare even if it exists. That is my assumption. That’s it. That’s all. It seems to me that this sounds a little less terrifying than how it was described here, but I really don’t have more room. I think the things are, all in all, described in the book, if one reads them properly. I think it is reasoned—well reasoned. That’s what I think, but of course, with your permission. So let’s open it up for a few questions. I went on a bit long, but if you’ll allow me—anyone who wants can leave. So, yes.

The additional “why,” I really did want to address that and forgot. That additional “why” is not—it is not an additional “why.” First of all, I did not say that nothing interests the Holy One, blessed be He. On the contrary, I write in the book that everything interests Him. I don’t know where you got that statement of mine from. Therefore He follows. I mean the faith in the Hebrew Bible. No, no, no—I’m talking now about our providence today. The question is why serve the Holy One, blessed be He? The additional “why.” Why do it at all? Why not say that the Bible also isn’t true? One hundred percent—but you’re asking me, why serve God at all, after all nothing interests Him? You used that in this context. So I’m saying in this context: I absolutely do not think so. Of course it interests Him. He created us in order that we should do things, and it certainly matters to Him whether we do them or not. The question of whether He intervenes or does not intervene is a completely different question—not because He isn’t interested, but because we are grown children, and with grown children a father does not hold their hand and do the work in their place. Rather he tells them: friends, you need to do the work yourselves. That does not mean there is no right or wrong work. There is right work, and there are goals He set before us, and we—and I think one should do it because that is the truth. Not because as a result of that I will be healed, and not because as a result of that I will return to the Land of Israel or not return to the Land of Israel, but because that is what should be done. I also think it helps—helps in certain ways that I don’t exactly understand, but it helps. But in this matter it has nothing to do with whether it interests the Holy One, blessed be He, or not. I think it does. But that is not the point. The point is that serving God should not be based on give-and-take. Serving God should be based on the fact that this is what is right. Therefore on this issue, to do the additional “why”—I didn’t understand the question at all. To me, the ABC of Judaism is commitment.

As for faith in the Hebrew Bible, which really is tradition, I didn’t get to it—I had some passage where you ask yourself this question in the book, Hillel asks you: if there are no miracles today, why do you believe there once were miracles? Because there were—because there are testimonies and prophets, and I believe in that. What’s the problem? But you write that the explanation you give is that the Holy One, blessed be He, changed His mind. That doesn’t seem explained to me. Right, not at all. But the fact that it isn’t explained is still not a reason to say yes. It is not a reason to say that He is intervening now. No, that’s the same mistake as in Rabbi Mutzafi’s questions. No, that’s not right, there’s no similarity. I said: my basic point is not that it isn’t strange that He changed His way. First of all, I see around me that He changed. There are no open miracles, there is no prophecy. Who said there once was? I did not see miracles. So I say: I believe in the Hebrew Bible. Do you want me not to believe? Afterward I can give you a lecture on why, but I believe in the Hebrew Bible. So I think there was prophecy and there were open miracles, and today there are not. Now I see around me that everything is conducted according to the way of nature. More than that: I see around me that all those who declare that they believe in this—that everything is from the Holy One, blessed be He, everything is in the hands of the Holy One, blessed be He—do not really believe it. The video of Rabbi Steinman that I brought on my site as well—I think that demonstrates it very nicely. In the end, that is the basic assumption of every person, in my opinion—almost every person. What happens is the natural thing. And therefore that is the point. And now I say, fine, once it was different, so apparently He changed policy. My basis is not that there’s no problem, He can change policy. He can do many things; that proves nothing. It is an explanation—after I say I see around me that this is His policy—hey, once it was different; okay, He can change policy. And I can even offer some explanation as to why He did that. Yes.

I just want to add, in Rabbi Medan’s name, that he described how during the Second Temple period the Holy One, blessed be He, gradually detached Himself. All sorts of metaphors, and all sorts of things that happened in the Temple gradually faded. Yes, all the ten miracles that were not there—the ten miracles that had been in the Temple were not present in the Second Temple. Yes, Rabbi Medan describes it that way. Okay, any more questions? One more question or two and…

Regarding foreknowledge and free choice, I remember that in your book you present it as though the Holy One, blessed be He, solved the mathematical formula—that there are logical contradictions, that the two cannot coexist—and there are things where you didn’t solve the formula, and I didn’t understand you because it was something mathematical. Afterward you move to Or HaChaim, who himself says in the portion of Noah that the Holy One, blessed be He, hides the knowledge from Himself, not that He cannot know. I criticized him, I criticized him—unless he meant what I said; otherwise what he says is a logical contradiction. And that follows from the mathematical formula. It’s mathematical, but yes, logic—two kinds of contradiction, right? It’s logic, and that still remains. Certainly, completely. I think the contradiction between foreknowledge and free choice is not a physical problem; it is a logical problem. That is the issue here; that is my basic point. By the way, I also have precedents for that. Not that I need precedents—I’m not all that interested in precedents—but there are precedents for it. The Shelah HaKadosh… the Shelah writes it, I think Or HaChaim writes it too, and the principle of charity—unless we attribute a logical contradiction to him. And by the principle of charity it is preferable to understand him in a way that is consistent. One last question? Yes.

Yes, specifically on the third language, what Rav Avi said about studying the second language—it came up less in the discussions, what Rav Avi said about first and second order, but it was in the background—about whether we can deny authority. The Rabbi often talks about authority, that our authority is the Babylonian Talmud. And everything else, the whole categorization beyond that, is much shakier. But what about, for example, various conventions, halakhic conventions that were accepted over time, which are also a kind of acceptance? Maybe not acceptance like Torah, like Ravina and Rav Ashi as the end of authoritative teaching, like the Babylonian Talmud, but a kind of acceptance like the ban of Rabbenu Gershom, which is a rabbinic ban, and not even rabbinic law, and today almost no Torah scholar would think and say: come, let’s abolish it—and whoever would say that would be extremely rare. So I’m asking: why in this matter does the Rabbi cut so sharply, and you say there are no conventions at all, and it sounds more like the halakhic rulings of the Rogatchover—ruling directly from the Talmud? What about these conventions—do they disappear?

So I would say: yes, even the authority of the Talmud, as I explain there, stems from convention, because the Talmudic sages were not ordained in the classical sense and it was not the Sanhedrin. And the reliance on the Talmud, and the inability to disagree with the Talmud—which I think is agreed upon by all halakhic decisors—stems from convention. And in that sense, if there were complete halakhic convention regarding something else, I would treat it the same way. Can we have one last question? Sorry? Okay, he has one more question, fine.

Last question regarding the first language. Yes, the first language is consensual, that’s fine. No, the first language—if we take it outside the study hall, to a place from which atheists emerged—then would its arguments run into something, in that the fact that what the Rabbi writes, that believers do not perceive the first language that way, stems from psychological readiness for the transition from deism to theism, perhaps because of mysticism or insufficient desire or things like that? And it seems like a kind of… I think I explained that very point there, and I also devoted a column to it on the website. Many things are expanded there a bit. The claim that I explained there is the meaning of religious education. Very often religious education opens options before you that perhaps you would not have noticed existed if you had not received that education. Therefore, in my view—first of all as a matter of fact—it is clear to me that if I present these arguments and there are atheists sitting here, I assume the great majority will not be convinced. That’s what I think and estimate; I also already have a certain amount of experience in these matters. The great majority will not be convinced. The question is whether that says anything. That is, this book is not addressed to atheists. This book is addressed to people who at base are believers, but who come to certain doubts and say, wait a second—but who says? Maybe it isn’t true? Maybe it’s just an illusion? So I say: no, not everything you were educated into is an illusion. There are things where, once you were educated into them, you suddenly became open to seeing an option that without that education you would not have seen—but that does not mean the education is a kind of programming. Okay? That’s the claim. Okay then, thank you very much, everyone.