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Table of Contents
- Closeness to scripture in Jewish philosophy and the exception of “Mekor Chayim”
- The continuum of Jewish religious philosophical literature and its connection to the Torah
- Alexandrian philosophy: Philo and Aristobulus and a midrashic pattern
- Whether philosophy emerges from scripture or attaches itself to it afterward
- The danger of “deriving conceptions from scripture” and the dispute over truth versus caution
- The example of Copernicus and reading verses as philosophical determination
- Studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) today: conceptual innovation versus interpretation and the need for meaning
- “Closeness to scripture” as an inner world of meanings and not an intellectual exercise
- The thirteen hermeneutical principles and the feeling of arbitrariness versus essential meaning
- Study as scientific investigation versus Torah study
- Hebrew wisdom: a Torah-shaped and parabolic form, and the connection between study and action
- What practical difference does it make, “Great is study because it leads to action,” and anchoring in reality
- Philo, Yedaya HaBedersi, the Rashba, and the struggle against allegorizing the patriarchs
- Shattering myths, Trumpeldor, and the claim that there is no real value without a real-world anchor
- Talmud and action as one axis rather than a dichotomy
Summary
General Overview
The text argues that the outstanding feature of Jewish philosophy is its closeness to scripture, with one major exception: Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol in “Mekor Chayim,” which does not rely on scripture and was therefore once mistakenly identified as Muslim philosophy. It presents a historical continuum of thinkers and books that are attached to the Torah, and raises the question whether in Maimonides and similar figures the philosophy really emerges from scripture, or whether the philosophy comes first and scripture serves as an anchor and a means of harmonization. Out of the question of why we study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) at all and why we look for practical implications, it concludes that closeness to scripture is not an intellectual game but a way of building an inner “world of meanings” that connects abstract principles to life, and that for this purpose an essential bond between study and action is also required.
Closeness to scripture in Jewish philosophy and the exception of “Mekor Chayim”
The text states that all philosophers in Israel, except for Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol in the book “Mekor Chayim,” base their words on scripture. It describes how “Mekor Chayim” was considered until the last century to be a book by a Muslim philosopher, and then it was discovered to be by Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol. This is explained by the fact that the book does not rely on scripture and was therefore harder to identify as Jewish. It adds that the resemblance to Muslim philosophy is in general very great across medieval books, but closeness to scripture is what clearly identifies them, and here that identification was problematic.
The continuum of Jewish religious philosophical literature and its connection to the Torah
The text places at the head of the first Jewish religious philosophical system Rav Saadia Gaon in “The Book of Beliefs and Opinions” and Rabbenu Bachya in “Duties of the Heart,” and at the end of each article places Rabbi Abraham Ibn Daud in “Emunah Ramah” as a transition to “The Guide,” meaning “Guide for the Perplexed.” It compares this to the Kuzari of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi and notes that it is arranged according to the alphabetical order of the books of the Torah, while wondering whether the Kuzari is “directly based on the Torah” and in what sense it is philosophical, concluding that it does contain philosophical aspects such as “the doctrine of attributes” and a position that is not rationalist in the usual sense. It also states that the philosophy of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra is included in his commentary on the Torah and the Prophets and Writings.
Alexandrian philosophy: Philo and Aristobulus and a midrashic pattern
The text attributes the uniqueness of Alexandrian religious philosophy to its closeness to the Torah, and presents it as the earliest of all, from a period preceding the known Jewish philosophers, already in the Hasmonean period and even before that. It mentions Philo and Aristobulus and his book “Midrash of the Holy Torah,” while questioning whether Aristobulus even existed, and emphasizes that what has survived is very similar to the midrashim of the Sages. It quotes that the books “in their form and content are similar to the midrashim of the Sages,” and that this is “what determines the special form of Jewish philosophy.”
Whether philosophy emerges from scripture or attaches itself to it afterward
The text raises the claim that one cannot say of “Guide for the Perplexed” that it emerges from scripture. Rather, the process works in reverse: Maimonides knows philosophically what is correct, and only then attaches it to scripture in order to show that there is no contradiction between philosophy and Torah or tradition. It defines this as “the DNA of all Jewish philosophy,” and gives as an example the issue of the eternity of the world, where Maimonides rejects a view because “since we have no proof from reason, we reject the opposing view because our tradition is otherwise.” It says that even when verses are brought as proof, the opposition to other methods is first of all philosophical, and only afterward are supporting verses added.
The danger of “deriving conceptions from scripture” and the dispute over truth versus caution
The text claims that deriving conceptions from scripture “seems a bit dangerous to me,” because one can arrive at contradictory conclusions. It gives as an example the conception of divine corporeality that appears to emerge from the Bible, and from which Maimonides seeks to remove us. It draws a distinction between “dangerous and not dangerous” as a fence, and the question of truth, and argues that if the information really is in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and can be derived from it, then saying it is dangerous has no meaning; rather, one must clarify what is true.
The example of Copernicus and reading verses as philosophical determination
The text brings the argument that one who relies on scripture reached the conclusion that Copernicus was wrong because of the verse in Joshua that says “the sun stood in the middle of the heavens.” It responds that Copernicus “didn’t determine anything” but “only proposed a coordinate system,” so there is no objective determination here as to who revolves around whom, and one cannot decide such a thing.
Studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) today: conceptual innovation versus interpretation and the need for meaning
The text asks whether one can derive a “new, brilliant, smart idea from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)” without having thought of it beforehand, and argues that readers usually insert existing ideas rather than extracting conceptual innovations, whereas on the interpretive level there are at times “brilliant plain-sense readings” and beautiful moves. It asks what such study adds if the ideas are already known in advance, and gives the example of reading Genesis 1–2 as two aspects of the human role in the world: “to rule over the world” versus “to work it and guard it.”
“Closeness to scripture” as an inner world of meanings and not an intellectual exercise
The text argues that even if philosophy does not emerge from scripture, one should not conclude that closeness to scripture is meaningless, because it brings abstract principles into life and builds a “world of meanings” and an inner mode of perceiving concepts. It states that the fact that many people study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and do not ask why it does not teach them anything new shows that such study “does contribute something,” and explains that the contribution lies in the way the principle is “lived more deeply” when it is absorbed into scripture. It presents this as a necessary return of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) to the “national framework” after its disconnection in the yeshiva world, and says that studying the plain sense is not “just an intellectual exercise” but builds something inward even if one could have recited the principle beforehand.
The thirteen hermeneutical principles and the feeling of arbitrariness versus essential meaning
The text criticizes the idea that when the thirteen hermeneutical principles are perceived as a “set of formal rules” that allows one “to play with the verses” in order to derive already-known Jewish law, then “it adds nothing for you,” in contrast to the experience of plain-sense study in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). It says that if one claims the disconnection stems from lack of skill or disconnection from a world in which the thirteen principles “say something,” then that means they are not arbitrary but essential, and it presents this as a kind of “whichever way you look at it” argument.
Study as scientific investigation versus Torah study
The text distinguishes between a scientific interest in understanding the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), similar to anthropology studying tribes, and Torah study. It argues that study that is satisfied with “just explaining approaches” gives nothing, and that one has to “try to understand what lies behind the approaches.” It adds that in the Talmud too the same principle applies as in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), even though in the Talmud there are sometimes actual innovations.
Hebrew wisdom: a Torah-shaped and parabolic form, and the connection between study and action
The text states that “Hebrew wisdom is unique in its Torah-shaped and parabolic form,” and that it is supposed to appear “as a practical commandment and in concise proverbial speech,” in the Torah, Proverbs of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes. It argues that presenting ideas through cases and Jewish laws is not primitiveness but a necessity arising from the nature of systematic writing, and emphasizes that even in Maimonides’ Mishneh Torah there is not a “set of laws” but “a collection of cases” and applications, with the claim that “the fact that there are so many exceptions” shows that the Torah is not a formal legal system but “a living system.”
What practical difference does it make, “Great is study because it leads to action,” and anchoring in reality
The text brings quotations about the importance of action: “Regarding something that has no practical relevance, the Talmudic scholar asks: what practical difference does it make?”, “Great is study because it leads to action,” “Wise is the one whose deeds are greater than his wisdom,” “everything depends on the abundance of action,” and “an actual deed is decisive.” It cites Ran in Sanhedrin regarding “How much is a Sinai ox worth?” and the question “What practical difference does it make?”, including the answer that it could matter for conditional Nazirite status, and explains that the main point is not a law book but the determination that there is no correct conceptual distinction that has no root in the world of action. It formulates a principle according to which Torah distinctions are a reality that must come to expression in the categories of the world, even if the case is not actually common, and presents this as the opposite of a philosophical severing between idea and deed.
Philo, Yedaya HaBedersi, the Rashba, and the struggle against allegorizing the patriarchs
The text identifies “Yedidya the Alexandrian” with Philo and cites the claim that the patriarchs and the givers of the Torah were “a living law, psychic and intellectual.” It describes the responsum of the Rashba and his ban against engaging in philosophy before the age of twenty-five, and his criticism of Yedaya HaBedersi and his group, who understood Abraham and Sarah as “matter and form” rather than as concrete individuals. It notes that they relied on Maimonides and that the Rashba came out against this in “Sefer HaKena’ot,” with mention also of the Ramah and Rabbi Meir HaLevi Todros Abulafia. It states that all the philosophers in Israel observed Torah and commandments and were meticulous in their fulfillment, from Aristobulus and Philo, “the priest who would go up to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice in the Temple,” down to the latest authorities.
Shattering myths, Trumpeldor, and the claim that there is no real value without a real-world anchor
The text uses the example of Trumpeldor and the question whether he said “It is good to die for our land” in order to argue that resistance to shattering myths is not only a historical matter but is tied to values, and that one who wants to shatter the myth wants to shatter the value. It makes the philosophical claim that “there is no true myth that did not occur in reality” and “there is no true idea that does not have some real root,” and therefore genuine values must have expression in the world of action. It applies this also to the opposition to allegorizing Abraham and Sarah, with the claim that “there cannot be a correct conception unless there was an event in reality that is its root,” and that concrete expression is a necessary anchor for the abstract idea.
Talmud and action as one axis rather than a dichotomy
The text presents the expression “Great is study because it leads to action” as self-contradictory only to someone who thinks in a dichotomous way—“either study or action.” It explains that the greatness of study is expressed in the fact that it leads to action, not that it is some external instrument. It concludes by presenting the Torah conception as a necessary bond between the spiritual world and the practical world, in which ideas receive life, meaning, and real-world anchoring, and their separation is viewed as foreign to the essence of Torah.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] About Duties of the Heart, from the standpoint of philosophy and scripture. All the philosophers in Israel, except for Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol in the book Mekor Chayim, base their words on scripture. We already mentioned this book, Mekor Chayim, if you remember, in some earlier note, that it’s an interesting book, because people thought this book was by some Muslim philosopher until the last century. Then in the last century it was suddenly discovered that it was Rabbi Shlomo Ibn Gabirol. So that actually fits this claim very well—that it really doesn’t look like all the other books of the Jewish philosophers in the Middle Ages, because it doesn’t rely on scripture, and therefore it was much harder to identify. In any case, the resemblance in general to Muslim philosophy is very great in all the books, but the closeness to scripture is what clearly identified them. And here that was exactly the identification problem. Of course, if they had known all along, they would have identified it, but once the identity is lost, then…
[Speaker B] What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not familiar enough with their poems. I’m sure there are, but their scripture has to be broader than ours.
[Speaker B] The book by Abravanel’s son was also…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Which book? I don’t know it.
[Speaker B] Dialogues on Love?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Dialogues on Love, that I know, but not by the son of…
[Speaker B] Abravanel.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Judah Abravanel. José Ortega y Gasset, some Spanish philosopher.
[Speaker B] There’s also the philosophy of Abravanel. Some philosophy, in the Hebrew translation it’s something like “From Toil and the Seal.” That I don’t know, I don’t…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] remember.
[Speaker B] So what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What about that book? Does it also not rely on scripture, or does it?
[Speaker B] I think he also composed it, I think, originally not in Hebrew.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, that’s not terrible, we’ve already found… also in Portuguese? Okay, I haven’t heard of it, I don’t know that book. A friend once told me there’s some edition of the New Testament with the Old Testament bound together.
[Speaker B] Cute. Bound together.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It says there—he managed to write at the beginning—that it’s a complete Bible with additions by the author. Fine. “At the head of every article, the first Jewish religious philosophical system was founded by Rav Saadia Gaon in The Book of Beliefs and Opinions, and Rabbenu Bachya in Duties of the Heart, and at the end of every article Rabbi Abraham Ibn Daud in Emunah Ramah serves as a transition to the Guide, to Guide for the Perplexed; and as in the Kuzari of Rabbi Yehuda HaLevi, one may find an arrangement according to the order of the books of the Torah.”
[Speaker B] Did you think the Kuzari is based on the Torah? The Kuzari is directly based on the Torah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In what sense? In the sense that it doesn’t have exactly the same philosophical style as they do? Fine, it doesn’t matter, he’s not entering into a particular style right now. It isn’t called philosophical. But there are, I think, definitely philosophical aspects there; in my opinion the Kuzari is not disconnected.
[Speaker B] He calls it the philosophy of anti-philosophy.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Could be, but I’ve never really thought through exactly how to define it. But it is clearly very connected to philosophical topics; it’s not a disconnected book. It’s written a bit differently, with a different approach, but its doctrine of attributes clearly relates to philosophical approaches on that issue, and a number of other things as well. True, it’s more historicist, so to speak—that is, it examines things more in light of the historical side. It has a few different focal points.
[Speaker C] Also the place it gives to reason is essentially different from philosophers.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He wasn’t a rationalist in the accepted sense. Anyway, I think his place here on the list is certainly justified, I suppose. “The philosophy of Rabbi Abraham Ibn Ezra is included in his commentary on the Torah and the Hebrew Bible. The uniqueness of Alexandrian religious philosophy is that it is based on the Torah.” That’s basically two authors: the books of Philo, and the book of Aristobulus, Midrash of the Holy Torah. That’s a book written by Aristobulus—there’s even a question whether he existed at all—but basically what I think, at least what has survived to us from Alexandrian religious philosophy, is actually the earliest of all. A period that preceded all the known Jewish philosophers. What? Already in the Hasmonean period. Even before the Hasmoneans.
[Speaker B] Yes, yes, in the Hasmonean period.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s a thing—Rabbi Yitzhak Israeli is considered, say, the first of the known Jewish philosophers; that was, I think, the ninth century or something like that. And the Alexandrians, yes, like you’re saying, are parallel to the Tannaim more or less, or even while the Temple was still standing. He notes that here in some footnote even. Fine. Philo, Philo and Aristobulus—about whom there is some doubt, I think, whether he existed—there’s also a note here about that, Midrash of the Holy Torah—they are basically books very similar to midrashim, meaning their form too is simply very similar to the midrashim of the Sages. “In their structure and content they resemble the midrashim of the Sages,” he says here, they resemble the midrashim of the Sages. That is what determines the special form of Jewish philosophy.
[Speaker B] Is that just a loose association, or did it actually emerge from the text?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an interesting question.
[Speaker B] First of all, it’s interesting, I mean, that’s an interesting question.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are really two things, I think, that need to be remarked on in connection with this passage. The first question is exactly the point Yaniv is raising here. That is, I don’t think you can say, for example, about Guide for the Perplexed that it emerges from scripture. Goodness knows—even if you can say so about a chapter that starts from or refers to some verse from the Bible, goodness knows whether he started from biblical interpretation and on that basis built his method. I think it’s pretty clear there that it worked the other way around. In other words, philosophically it was clear to him what the correct things were, and then he attached that to scripture too—that is, he showed that scripture does not contradict it, because that is really the whole essence of the book: to show that there is no contradiction between philosophy and the Torah, or between philosophy and tradition.
[Speaker B] And that’s the DNA of all Jewish philosophy. So—and that’s exactly what I…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, I already noted that earlier here; I think you’re right about that too.
[Speaker B] But it’s not just topics Jews happen to deal with; it’s the DNA, like, the topics Jews deal with.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The contents he deals with—yes, those are Jewish, and even if he brings other opinions, the topics are topics of Jewish philosophy. Meaning, a lot of it—for example, the issue of the eternity of the world, which used to be very popular, today people don’t really deal with it, but once it was very popular among many kinds of philosophers. Fine. But in the end it’s content that is also connected to Jewish questions. The fact that Aristotle also spoke about it meant that it caught on among us—and so he wanted to discuss it.
[Speaker B] And Maimonides maybe won’t derive the foundations of the world from the verses, but he will certainly attach the foundations of the world that he is grappling with to the verses. That is, he won’t accept Aristotle’s eternity of the world, but he will manage to accept the…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There that is the classic example, and I think the only one if I remember correctly, where Maimonides says: “Since we have no proof by way of reason, we reject the opposing conception because our tradition is otherwise.” But it seems to me that even in places where he brings verses as proof, say, against methods that oppose him—I don’t remember concrete examples right now—I think it’s also pretty clear, in my opinion, that he opposes them fundamentally on philosophical grounds, and he also brings verses that support the matter. Meaning, I don’t think this philosophy—and that’s also historically clear—was a philosophy that came out of scripture. It’s not that he sat with the rebbe in his room learning the Bible, and this was the conception that emerged for him from the Bible, and now he translated it into philosophical language. It’s pretty clear that it worked the other way around. In other words, he studied philosophy from philosophers.
[Speaker B] I think it’s impossible to do. What? To derive conceptions from the… because if so, you can arrive at completely contradictory things. Why? For example, the conception of corporeality.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Well, with corporeality that really is a problem—again, a special problem—because yes, if you look at what emerges from the Bible, corporeality emerges from the Bible. And there Maimonides also says explicitly that that’s what he is doing, meaning that he comes to uproot the simple plain meaning that emerges from scripture. But I think it’s true in many other cases as well, and it’s pretty obvious. I think anyone who reads…
[Speaker B] So what exactly is Aristotle’s achievement? Copernicus’?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t know yet. Meaning, that’s just the first point that needs to be discussed, what Yaniv is raising. I’m really not entirely sure that this closeness to scripture is something essential. I don’t think so; I don’t assess it that way. One of the reasons is simply that I don’t see anything authentic there from a Jewish standpoint in this type of story. But fine.
[Speaker B] Someone who did rely on scripture reached the conclusion that Copernicus was wrong, because it says in Joshua that the sun stood in the middle of the heavens. Why does that contradict?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why does that contradict? Copernicus didn’t prove and didn’t try to—I think I said this once already—Copernicus didn’t determine anything. Copernicus only proposed a coordinate system. Meaning: Copernicus said that if you look at it as though the sun is standing still and all that—if you place your axes at the center of the sun, it will be much more convenient to look at things. There is no objective determination here of who revolves around whom; you can’t determine such a thing.
[Speaker B] To interpret the Torah and from it establish philosophy—it seems a bit dangerous to me.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why? If you believe it’s true, then what do you mean you can arrive at…? What you arrive at is true, what do you mean? I’m not discussing whether it’s dangerous or not dangerous; the question is whether it’s true. If it’s true—if I really think this information is in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and also that it can be extracted from it, which are two claims not necessarily dependent on each other—then what does “dangerous” mean? Whatever comes out, that’s what I’m supposed to believe here. In other words, if I have a problem with other determinations, then either I didn’t understand the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) correctly, or those determinations are incorrect, or my assumption that what is written in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is true is incorrect, I don’t know. But it isn’t decided by what’s dangerous and what isn’t. “Dangerous” and “not dangerous” is a precaution. Meaning, he tells you: look, even though in principle it might have been proper to do it this way, as a good recommendation—don’t do it. I’m asking first of all what the truth is, before the fences.
[Speaker C] Do you think that with Maimonides, I mean—for him it’s simply all his philosophy…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With Maimonides it stands out. I think that even with Rav Saadia Gaon, in my opinion—there it stands out less. With Rav Saadia Gaon too, I don’t believe it was something that emerged from scripture. But again, I’m less familiar with Rav Saadia Gaon. With Maimonides it is the most obvious thing. With Maimonides it is very obvious.
[Speaker B] In the Kuzari it’s exactly the opposite.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no. The Kuzari, yes—the Kuzari is a completely different outlook. Though even in the Kuzari, by the way, in the philosophical issues it’s not necessarily the same as in the historical issues, and so on. Fine, these really require special studies. Now, what is this really trying to say? I mean, this passage—beyond those deliberations. What does it mean that it is based on scripture? So what? What is unique about that? So this way: if the claim were that it emerges from scripture, then it would be clear what this is trying to say—that there is another source. But since I don’t really believe, certainly not regarding Maimonides, that that was the case—that is, it was not something that emerged from scripture—then here, and this is not a criticism by the way—I’m not sure it has to emerge from scripture. What Maimonides did is very legitimate, in my opinion; I have no problem with it at all. Aside from the determinations themselves, with which I may or may not identify. But as for the method itself—the fact that Maimonides takes philosophical determinations he believes in and afterwards looks for how they fit into scripture—that’s not a criticism, what I just said. I believe that is the situation, and it definitely isn’t a negative thing. Not that Maimonides needs my approval, but I certainly identify with that; it wasn’t a criticism. But then the question that arises here is: why really attach it to scripture at all? If you know everything philosophically, and you don’t reject things in light of scripture, but at best you only say that if it’s a tie you take what is in scripture, as Menachem noted earlier—that is, if I can’t prove the eternity or non-eternity of the world, then I take scripture or tradition or whatever it may be—then basically scripture has no role at all. So why should I care whether to attach it to scripture or not? I already know the truth. It’s like drawing the target after I’ve shot the arrow. So who needs that at all? Here there is a point that I’m not sure I know how to define fully, but I’ll give an example. I gave it last year in the afternoon class and it was a bit controversial. I feel this way very strongly, and to this day I think I still feel this way very strongly. Look at how you study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The way you study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) today. I say “you,” because I didn’t really happen to… and maybe that’s the point.
[Speaker B] But there are theories about the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There are theories, for example about sources?
[Speaker B] Beyond that, true,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] but let’s focus it more sharply. Has any of you ever managed to derive a new, brilliant, smart idea from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) without having thought of it before? Meaning, because he read the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), suddenly his eyes were opened? Because of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? Hm?
[Speaker B] I’d prefer to say yes, but I feel that’s not true. Any book where I don’t understand exactly what the words mean, and the words aren’t very simple, then almost always I’ll insert my own ideas. If he says things clearly, then there’s no option.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Inserting your own idea is still legitimate. Look, every text is an interaction between you and the text.
[Speaker B] Meaning, that’s fine, but never…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I never derive innovations. It’s always things I already read somewhere else, and that’s it. The question is how much meaning there is in this study at all if in fact I’m not learning. I mean, the collection of events is simply a collection of wars…
[Speaker B] which is awful,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] sometimes shocking. All that is described there is basically who fought whom and how many were killed. And sometimes, when you look at it in a physical way, it seems very… hm?
[Speaker B] Other than the Book of Joshua?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, not only the Book of Joshua, also afterward. I don’t think it’s only the Book of Joshua.
[Speaker B] There are a few more books until you get there. So that’s what I didn’t study—that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] as a historical
[Speaker B] aspect—that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] introduced all kinds of things—that’s completely obvious. Completely obvious. But I’m talking now about something else. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) also reflected an insertion not through the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The prophets introduced it when they spoke, and afterward it was also written in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Meaning, it’s not even necessarily that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) itself introduced these things into human culture—and ours as well—but also the prophets themselves, of course, and it’s only documented in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). But now our question is about us today. I’m bringing this as an example, not as a writing-off of the importance of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
[Speaker B] And most of the activity in studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), certainly in the accepted ways, is to show how the midrashim of the Sages—how they learned from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), how exactly they did it, maybe to show that it fits the verses.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But I want to learn new ideas. That’s obvious. So you see? That’s exactly what is written here, right? What is written here is that the defining feature of philosophy is that it is based on scripture. So even on the optimistic assumption that it really is based on scripture, it still isn’t the same thing.
[Speaker B] For us, in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), in the idea of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) today, I already study it independently, and therefore in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) I no longer found novelty. The philosophy of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) came out of the verses. No, I’m talking about today.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m speaking now by way of example. There isn’t some question here of why we study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). I’m bringing it as an example so that we can understand a bit what he is talking about in this passage, so let’s look at ourselves. Let’s ask ourselves why we study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Because we understand that from there it really came out.
[Speaker B] And if it isn’t from there, then I…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] don’t understand. What difference does it make whether it came from there? Isn’t it a waste of time to study something that doesn’t teach you anything new? In any case you already know everything in advance. Fine, you’ll interpret the verses this way or that way, you understood the plain meaning here, the plain meaning there—but the idea in the plain meaning, not the plain meaning itself. The plain meaning itself is sometimes brilliant, by the way. Sometimes there really are brilliant ideas that you hear, or I don’t know, maybe rarely, but there really are brilliant ideas on the interpretive level. Really interesting interpretation, or interesting parallels between different places, or all kinds of things like that—moves. It’s brilliant, but on the interpretive plane. But if you ask: fine, but now did I learn something new from this? Not how I now read the verses, such that I now understand the verses better—but after I understood the verses, what did this add to me? What did it add now?
[Speaker B] That it should add something I didn’t know before.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And therefore it basically doesn’t add. The question is why it nevertheless does add.
[Speaker B] There are many things that do add in the world, aren’t there? Very many things in the world do. What? You came to know them—you’re right. The whole Talmud too, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think in the Talmud, yes. And I think the Talmud also has a lot of this dimension, but with the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) it’s easier for me to demonstrate it, because my goal now isn’t to say that one shouldn’t study; I want to understand why one should.
[Speaker B] Is there anything in the world that isn’t like this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, plenty. What do you mean? A book of thought, a philosophy book—if those are things you already knew before, then you really are wasting your time.
[Speaker B] No, it develops things that… He starts from the axiom that all philosophy is analytic. Meaning, even what the Rabbi does in his evening talks is also some kind of analysis of things we’re all capable of arriving at.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’m not talking about being capable of arriving at them. If we weren’t capable of arriving at them, we wouldn’t understand anything. That’s obvious. Anything we understand is a sign that we’re capable of arriving at it. That’s obvious. Exactly. The question is, practically speaking, did it add something for you or not?
[Speaker B] And the fact that I see something written in some specific aspect, in some concrete case, or in some focus on a particular commandment—does that develop something I didn’t know before? Obviously every example adds.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So let’s be concrete. You study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) from time to time, right? Can anyone now suggest some new idea that came to him from understanding the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), something he hadn’t thought of before? I’m not talking about something in the verses—something he hadn’t thought of before on the conceptual level, not just the plain meaning of the verses. That I don’t understand the verses and suddenly there was a great light and he understands them wonderfully—that’s fine, that’s interpretation. And here there really are sometimes very beautiful things.
[Speaker B] You could answer here, okay, say Genesis 1 and 2—the two systems of how man relates to the world: one where he is supposed to rule the world, and one where he is supposed to care for the world, for the general need. I didn’t understand.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The idea of that chapter in Genesis.
[Speaker C] Yes, what?
[Speaker B] One time man’s role is to work it and guard it—he is supposed to care, he is master over creation, meaning not in the sense of power, not in the sense of fantasy that everything here is for him; he is supposed to provide creation with what it needs. He is at the center. Or he is here responsible for this garden; he needs to maintain this whole enterprise. Not that it’s all here for him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Did that come from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? So, it’s two aspects of… Did that not come from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? Yes. And you hadn’t thought that there are two such aspects? Not in that form.
[Speaker B] Not in that form. He’s talking about well-known things, I don’t know.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You know it? No, I don’t know it.
[Speaker B] He talks about how the whole Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is based on the idea that there is a spiritual world and a practical world. He expresses this, for example, in the case of the battle of Ai, where there is failure. Joshua does something there that makes no sense: he sends three thousand to conquer a city of twelve thousand men. And afterwards he goes up with all the fighting people, sets an ambush and all those things, and then he wins. And then they say that’s because they excommunicated Achan. This and many other things definitely give a person a sense…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I think the goal is not informational but to deepen that conception, which exists anyway. Even to try to strengthen it, or…
[Speaker B] I don’t think we… I think we have a problem.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] How does it exist? Maybe it explains how it exists and how it also comes to expression in decisions about worldviews—for example, what is the relation between effort and faith? What kind of effort says that I’m not supposed to do anything now? Meaning, it can also be something like that…
[Speaker B] The issue of army and yeshiva—if I’m now in yeshiva, does that affect something, or if I’m in the army does that affect something? I think it gives a very, very strong statement that can…
[Speaker C] It definitely
[Speaker B] resolves hesitation. There is a statement here, there is a determination here. If there’s something I recognized in the Sages and I find it and study it from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)… is that legitimate? Maybe not entirely.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Does that happen to you? No, but again—not as a bit in the verses, but as an idea. Not that it added something to your spiritual world, to your conceptual world, to your worldview—not that it enlarged your knowledge of verses in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
[Speaker B] That’s obvious, only I could have arrived at it even not through studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I could have arrived at it through studying Midrash Rabbah.
[Speaker B] No, that’s certain, that’s true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The interesting question is that it isn’t just a continuation.
[Speaker B] These are things—certain conceptions that maybe exist in the Oral Torah, I don’t know, from generation to generation, things people always say. Then I hear a Bible lesson that shows me how in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) that conception is very strongly reinforced. It could be a midrash, which could be a tendentious claim, and in a different yeshiva they would prove the opposite. I don’t know, it could be. But let’s take, for example, a classic example that people always like to cite: with the monarchy of Israel, whether it is clearly bad or good—that Elijah decreed years of drought before Ahab and then ran before him, girded his loins, and ran before him. So that shows that the monarchy of Israel—never mind that it’s Ahab—is something important, with all that implies. Or things like that—there are lots of examples. And I really think these examples were based on certain conceptions… There, that’s Talmud, no? What are you talking about? That’s biblical verses. No, Elijah is biblical verses. No, no, no, let’s just try to focus the discussion.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, the question rolled onward into other conceptions.
[Speaker B] It happened exactly with this question. Rolled onward? What, we already talked about this?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I remember it from last year, but maybe it changed too.
[Speaker B] It rolled onward to commentators on freedom, right? Who spoke about repentance. It rolled onward to Nachmanides… Or is there some element in the wisdom of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Then he’s so far away.
[Speaker B] No, I don’t know him. So he shortened this question, brought it up at some point, and it came up among two or three others who discussed it together with him, started to develop the answer, and then said that this was a question he really doesn’t think about. And that’s what interested him. It’s simply this question… He offered an answer to it here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And I have one more simple question that I’d pass on to him: why didn’t he think of this until now—until now? Well, that’s exactly why it’s interesting. No, no, no, this is an important issue. It’s an issue at the center of his being. It’s an issue at the center of his being. The question is: how could it be that he didn’t think of it? I’ll tell you simply why I’m asking this—not to needle him. I’ll tell you why he didn’t think of it until now. Because the answer is very simple: the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) does contribute something to him. And he didn’t feel that it wasn’t contributing anything, and therefore he didn’t think of it. And that’s really the point I wanted to get to after this whole discussion. Meaning, in the end, this attachment to the text—when you look at it from the outside, you have a group of people who basically know everything in advance and then insert it into the verses one way or another, and then they enjoy themselves: look, I found it in the verses. To someone looking from the outside, it sounds rather amusing and entertaining. But precisely—precisely—I think that we, as people who study this ourselves, the very fact that the question didn’t arise either for you or for perhaps people who are even more intensely engaged in these things, shows—and I don’t think they’re stupid people or people who ignore things—shows that it does contribute something. And then the interesting question is: what? In other words, the question is… the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)—I’m now going back to what we talked about last time. There is some world of meanings that reflects how both an individual and a public or a society perceive concepts, perhaps even the very same concepts that another public perceives. This world of meanings has to be built somehow; we’re not just born with it. And in some sense, true, I can say any sentence both without the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and with the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). And maybe that’s true—at least in most cases I think it’s true. There may be bad examples; I’m not arguing. But very often it’s true. But what happens after I bring it into the text is that the fact that it looks different—that’s a fact. I mean, the fact is that we feel that something in us is somehow grasped. Meaning, I don’t know, there’s some… we feel that there is some value to this study.
[Speaker B] But what if someone tells you that that’s what he’s doing?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right, right. So I tell him he’s exempt. And I now tell him that he’s neglecting Torah study if that’s what he’s doing. Really. I mean neglecting Torah study in quality. He’s engaged in something that is Torah, but it’s a shame about his time.
[Speaker B] Right? I want to take this a bit further and connect it to something broader. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If a person feels that it contributes something to him, then I say he shouldn’t think, because of that formal rational consideration I raised earlier, that he’s neglecting Torah study. That’s not true. It’s not true because the contribution is—
[Speaker B] Like someone else in the same circumstances could feel that it doesn’t—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] contribute to him.
[Speaker B] Right. It could be. Right.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I feel that it really is a bit of a waste of time.
[Speaker B] There are people who do this afterward too, even after the service. Yes. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) isn’t a waste… it contributes to…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh); the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contributes a lot. The study of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) as it’s done today.
[Speaker B] Yes, studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Not a waste—it contributes to… right. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) has additional layers. In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Ari also studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh); really everyone studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The only question is what they do with it. I’m talking about the kind of Bible study we’re used to. Just as an example, not… I’m not coming here to criticize yes or no; I’m trying to understand why really—a form of study like this, which from an outside perspective seems that in most cases we’re basically wasting our time—yet somehow it seems that people who do it, even for one more second, do produce something from it. It says something to them. It does build something inside them. Why? Because somehow the world of thought is not just a collection of propositions; it’s also how we absorb them, how we live them. And when it enters the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and we study it, and it somehow enters us, then that world of meanings we spoke about last time, if you remember—what meaning we give to all these principles—there are some principled rules, and everyone grasps and understands them differently, even though we may say the same words. And somehow it builds the inner interpretation we give to that principle, even though we knew it before. And somehow it inserts… beyond the fact that sometimes it really even decides between two possibilities, maybe, if we’re truly convinced enough. But I’m saying even in the cases I was talking about, where on the face of it it really doesn’t seem to add anything. I knew it before and now I know it too, so what did I do? But that’s not true. Because attachment to the text—and here I come back to him for one more second—attachment to the text is not just a game or an intellectual trick. Attachment to the text means that the text is somehow present within the person who lives it, so when a certain abstract principle, which he may have thought was true and so on, enters into the text for him, then now he lives it more. Meaning, that’s clear, I mean… I don’t know, it’s hard for me to define this thing, but I’m drawing your attention precisely to this point: none of those who study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) thinks about this. A sign that this question simply isn’t true. Meaning, it’s a fact that they feel it contributes. They—we—I don’t know what to call it.
[Speaker B] But isn’t this… a national pattern, like you said? Huh?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite. And the fact that most of the public does—well, I place some blame on myself in that I feel this way a little, that I was somewhat detached from this matter. No, fine. But I think it is appropriate that it be this way, and that this form needs to be renewed, and that it should re-enter the national pattern. As is known, in the yeshiva world for many recent years they didn’t touch the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and clearly some sort of rupture took place, and it somehow left our inner world. And precisely the attempt—which in my view is a blessed one, don’t misunderstand me—is blessed: to bring it back into the inner world. Meaning, when you have the plain meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), that’s not just an intellectual exercise. When you have the plain meaning in the verses, or in some chapter or something in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), it somehow builds something in your inner world of meanings. Even though you could have recited that principle beforehand as well. In that sense, I think, that is actually the idea he means to say—what you asked, what he wants to say in this passage. Attachment to the text is not just tricks. On the one hand, if it comes out of the text, then that’s the first introduction I gave. If it comes out of the text, then what is there to talk about? Obviously. Then the text is the source of Jewish philosophy. I don’t believe that in a large part of the cases. But on the other hand, if I don’t believe that, then what, are we just wasting our time? After all, I know the truth from Aristotle, and afterward I push it into the verses, by force or not by force, but I try to push it into the verses. In the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) it’s much easier to do that, and it’s the same thing in the Talmud / Talmudic text. The same thing. No. As for the fact that we have Jewish laws from Rashba and Maimonides that the Ralbag—
[Speaker B] is expounded through all thirteen hermeneutical principles by which the Torah is interpreted.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but with the thirteen principles, according to my critique, in my eyes—at least in my eyes. Because there, the fact that I found it in this—again, it may be that among the Sages it’s different. But the way I feel, if it’s a set of formal rules, where all you really manage to do is play with the texts so that this Jewish law comes out by means of one of the principles, that adds nothing for you; it really adds nothing. It’s not like the plain meaning in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). It’s just… what does that do? You understand? That’s how I feel. It may be that this feeling is really just a result of my detachment from the feeling of what the thirteen principles are. But again, if it really is a set of formal rules, then there’s no detachment, then the Sages felt that way too. Maybe I’m not sufficiently skilled in using them, but that’s exactly the point. If you say that it stems from my detachment from a world in which the thirteen principles really—really—mean something and determine something for my life, that I found it in the verses, then you’re really saying that the thirteen principles are not a set of arbitrary rules but something essential. So that’s exactly what the Nazir says: whichever way you look at it. You understand? Meaning, therefore I think that in any case the conception of the thirteen principles as some set of arbitrary rules, and working with them—that’s simply not… That conception, together with saying that the Jewish laws are basically known in advance, as Maimonides says—I think these two things together are the greatest distortion. Yes.
[Speaker B] But in all sorts of things people study—I mean, I’ve seen that they’re interested in all sorts of things, in biblical criticism, meaning scholars, there are tons of articles, tens of thousands of things they research, and in the end it lets them understand that thing in a local sense. So what is it in Torah?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that’s the question. As I said before, if you have a scientific interest—if you have a scientific interest in understanding this text called the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), just as anthropology has a scientific interest in understanding the way of life of the Apache tribe in America, and that’s it—okay, but that’s not Torah study.
[Speaker B] There’s an interest in Jewish law in the Talmud / Talmudic text, it’s not like Jewish law in a halakhic / of Jewish law passage; it’s an interest in Talmud / Talmudic text. And it gives us nothing because no Jewish law will come out of it either. We’re only explaining positions. I don’t think that’s so.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If we’re only explaining positions, then we’ve done nothing. I think we’re also supposed to try to understand what lies behind the positions. And that’s it—I don’t know, in my view that gives a lot. It may be that if we don’t manage to get there, then it really is cheating, but we’re supposed to get there. In the Talmud / Talmudic text too it’s the same as in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is a more extreme example, and that’s why I chose it. The same things overlap regarding the Talmud / Talmudic text. Although in the Talmud / Talmudic text, in my opinion, here and there there really are genuine innovations—at least in my view, I know many more genuine innovations that were newly developed for me only because of—the Talmud / Talmudic text, that didn’t exist before—but again, very many times it’s not so. And therefore in the Talmud / Talmudic text too I think it’s the same thing. Meaning, once for me—and we’ll see this later—this is actually section 7—
[Speaker B] and onward,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] section 7 and 8 up to 10, or section 9, exactly on this issue, on the connection between analysis and practice. So that may be for discussion later, but I think it’s the same idea.
[Speaker B] So it could also be that when reading the medieval authorities (Rishonim), it seems to me at least that for our rabbi, and I think for many, it matters to see how it comes out of the Talmud / Talmudic text itself, even though supposedly it’s already been decided meaningfully.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s obvious—you won’t find Rashba not ruling that way. So why do you care anymore how it comes out of the Talmud / Talmudic text? Exactly, and that’s the whole point. I have all the interpretive possibilities, everything is fine, even let’s say three possibilities according to one, but in the end when you see how it is read in the Talmud / Talmudic text—I’m not… that’s exactly… if it were possible to define it, then I’d also know how to say what it added for me. But the fact that I don’t know how to define it doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist, right? We already talked about that in the evening classes. Meaning, there are things that somehow belong to… In the previous lesson we even tried a bit to characterize it or define it or at least locate it. That there really is an inner world of meanings of the propositions and concepts we all talk about. Yes, we talked about the color red. About the color red, we all agree on all the objects that are red. The question is what red means to us—that’s an entirely different question. On the level of what red means to each of us, that’s where all these things operate. Meaning, in that same place. And therefore I already knew in advance that this table is red or green even before I studied the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). But after I studied the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), I somehow understand more inwardly what green is. Meaning, I somehow live it more. And therefore I think that this is the true meaning of attachment to the text. It’s a little naive to say that attachment to the text means that what’s here really—really—comes out of the text. That’s naive. I don’t believe that. But on the other hand, one should not draw the conclusion that it is not meaningful. And attachment to the text is the way we bring all those formal, abstract, detached principles into life. Fine.
[Speaker B] I think that all the immoral passages in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)—and there are many passages that seem irrational to us—those are passages that renew a tremendous amount for us because they negate everything that we…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, but usually nobody is going to derive from them anti-moral operative conclusions. Usually.
[Speaker B] So we’re not studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No—either we’re not studying the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) properly, or after all there is no real explosive force, no absolute meaning, but only in combination with all the other principles we bring with us. And I don’t think that’s a negative thing. Meaning, in the end it’s an interaction between the person and the text. Meaning, it’s not that the text stands on its own and whatever comes out of it, just like that, very naively—that’s not it. Okay, let’s see what he says—
[Speaker C] at the end of section two, which is exactly what we talked about last time.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “What determines the special pattern of Jewish philosophy”—again, since I don’t know exactly what this concept of “pattern” means, then again, from the wording it sounds as if “pattern” is simply the form, the way one writes.
[Speaker B] It’s not mystical.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s not mystical—the opposite. It’s the plane that precedes any rational understanding. There is no rational understanding without it either. It’s not a mystical matter. If you don’t live—if you don’t have some world of symbols and meanings—and we’ll see this here in a moment—that is inside you, then when you read the text it won’t say anything to you. You’ll read some Indian text, I don’t know, that speaks about a world foreign to you in terms of its concepts and principles, and it won’t say anything to you. It won’t say anything to you even on the simple informational level; I mean, maybe you’ll be able to recite a little what those guys used to do. But the pattern—for something to say something to you, so that you feel inside that it said something to you—it’s not enough to know how to repeat in words the principle I saw here. It has to say something to me. And for it to say something to me, I need to feel it within figures who lived and acted, within historical processes. You know, it’s different to grasp things in a living way. We’ll see. So let’s move to the next text and then come back. I think this is a direct continuation of these texts even though they don’t look like that. It’s a direct continuation because they all basically speak about exactly the connections between these two planes. There it was the connection between philosophy and the text. Here begins the connection between action and analysis. Section 2, subsections 7 through 10, basically. “Hebrew wisdom is unique in its Torah and parabolic pattern. It is stated as a commandment, as practical Jewish law, and in brief sayings, as a parable in the Torah, the Proverbs of Solomon, and Ecclesiastes.” Torah—meaning, here it seems as if the formulation… and by the way, this is true of many ancient cultures—that wisdom was not ordered wisdom. Meaning, there was no orderly philosophical doctrine that proceeds from several foundational principles, derives all the conclusions from them, and presents before you some picture: this is the teaching, behold and sanctify. Rather, all kinds of local flashes of insight—a short saying here, a short saying there—what are called aphorisms.
[Speaker B] So Torah means practice?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, and that is deliberate. The Sages—the Sages—it’s deliberate. Deliberate, really deliberate, it’s not an excuse. I think that someone who has enough experience reading systematic works understands why one must write precisely in this way. Right? Yes. Today it always looks like a reference to a primitive form of writing.
[Speaker B] I think that’s not true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But in Ecclesiastes—you see—a bitter mistake, in my opinion. Just a moment.
[Speaker B] Why in Ecclesiastes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Ecclesiastes is not command, there are some commands there, true, but—
[Speaker B] That’s not the point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “Whatever your hand finds…” — there are some commands in Ecclesiastes too, meaning, but it’s these short sayings that are also supposed to leave you some interpretive space and some reminder.
[Speaker B] He’s saying much more than that here.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Commandment, parable. Ah—practical commandment as Jewish law and in brief saying, etc.
[Speaker B] So that means there is something here beyond just scattered short sayings. It’s also that the study is carried out through practical Jewish law, not through abstract theory, and that’s the next stage, in a moment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What? Right. The whole Torah is like this—the Written Torah, the Oral Torah, everything is like this. Maimonides in the Book of Commandments? Even Maimonides, even Maimonides, is not like this. Even Maimonides is not like this. Although he is already the closest… He states laws within… no, no, in the Mishneh Torah, in the Mishneh Torah. Maimonides does not preface some set of rules. Maimonides speaks about a collection of cases: the law here, the law here, the law here. No set of laws is written there. There is some general set of rules—what overrides what, what is this, what is that—but all of it is applications of the cases. What’s the problem? The cases are precedents in civil law. It’s not written in the statute. Understand: here the law is the cases. Meaning, you could say that you simply wrote precedents. I can’t say that it’s a law code. It’s a different conception of the idea of law. Although I agree that Maimonides is the one who started pulling in the direction of the—
[Speaker B] Yes. And in the end the later authorities (Acharonim)? The later authorities really do make it into a book of general rules that leads…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] dispute, “I can claim,” doubt… okay, fine.
[Speaker B] Ein Yaakov and Shakh, it appears there too…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In no place does it ever quite get there. It’s not… the halakhic decisors really did it this way—that’s a joke.
[Speaker B] Because there are many later authorities (Acharonim) who try to turn
[Speaker C] it into that—they’re trying.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It’s just a very simple thing. No, no, I’m not saying this ironically. That would be best, if that were all that had to be done. I’m not speaking ironically. But you’ll never get there. Why? Because it’s not like that.
[Speaker B] Isn’t it because there’s a problem that the cases are very hard to fit into frameworks of rules? And there are so many exceptions—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s an indication, not the cause. The fact that there are so many exceptions is an indication that Torah is not a system of laws in the simple literal sense. It’s a living system that comes to expression in all sorts of cases; everything is a million cases. And you try to approximate it, yes—an example from the studio—we talked about this, as I remembered from the evening lessons—and you try to approximate it with a collection of various rules, approximation attempts that progress and maybe improve a little, but still have a lot of room for improvement. But again, that’s our way of grasping things, fine—so grasp it that way. But not that the goal is ultimately to create a set of rules so that a computer could issue a halakhic ruling in every case. To many people it seems as if that is the goal of learning: once we decode everything, extract all the roots, organize a few functions, we’ll program it. No, that’s not what one does.
[Speaker B] Of course not. That’s not what one does.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] To state the deductions—what is this? “Migo based on a prohibition”? That’s not what one does, it’s not what one says, it’s not what one does. The question is… okay, one second more, let’s finish one thing and then talk about it. No, it’s very important to understand this, gentlemen; this is the most important thing there is. Meaning, one has to understand this, and it touches us every moment. “Torah means both theoretical and practical meaning alike.” Below there are all the quotations: concerning something that has no practical relevance, the Talmudic student asks, “What practical difference does it make?” There are no things without a practical difference—what practical difference does it make? If there is no practical difference—do you know the Ran in tractate Sanhedrin? We spoke about it once, right? Page 15, I think, in Sanhedrin. The Talmud / Talmudic text asks: regarding the Sinai ox, by how many judges? An ox that approached Mount Sinai—so by how many is it judged? How many judges must there be in the religious court that judges the ox? Because “the death of the owner is like the death of the ox,” so for the owner’s death it’s twenty-three, in a capital court. Is the Sinai ox also judged by twenty-three or not? That’s what the Talmud / Talmudic text asks. And I think that’s a wonderful question. The Ran there asks: what practical difference does it make? So there are two answers. One is a practical difference—he doesn’t say it in marriage betrothal but in naziriteship. That’s the source. The practical difference for marriage betrothal—people don’t know, but this is the source. The Ran says: the practical difference is for naziriteship. Someone who vows naziriteship on condition that the Sinai ox is judged by twenty-three. After all, anything under the sun that you do is of course Torah study par excellence; every single thing you learned, one can of course vow naziriteship on condition of that. Besides that, there is also some substantive answer; I don’t remember exactly what—
[Speaker B] the second answer is because it’s less principled.
[Speaker C] Regarding Ezra: “what was, was”; with regard to something not found in the present, what practical difference does it make?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It is Torah—
[Speaker B] The question is whether it’s true that they really want to see something practical.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I’ll come back to that in a moment.
[Speaker B] All these examples are the least practical examples possible.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It doesn’t matter at all—
[Speaker B] and it matters in the sense that this comes—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] to say that the goal is not how to behave. Fine, but there has to be an implication on the practical plane. It doesn’t matter if it’s on a theoretical-practical plane, but there has to be one.
[Speaker B] And that’s the important point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Sinai ox certainly has a distinction; “what practical difference does it make” is just because it became—
[Speaker B] that kind of phrase.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The general rule is: “Great is study, for it leads to action.” “A sage is one whose deeds exceed his wisdom,” and “everything depends on the abundance of action.” And also “an actual deed is weighty”—simply a list of quotations that include action, that learning from actual deed is an important thing. And likewise, for Yedidya the Alexandrian—that is Philo, Yedidya the Alexandrian—“the patriarchs, givers of the Torah, were themselves a living law, animate and intellectual.” Here this is the famous gathering in the responsum with Yedaya Bedersi. In the responsum that Rashba writes there, as a responsum against those engaged in philosophy—a series of responsa there together with the ban, Rashba’s ban there that one should not engage in these matters before the age of twenty-five. So one of the claims there is that Yedaya Bedersi and his group, those who engaged in these things—or engaged in them before their proper time. Rashba too says not to engage altogether; he says to wait a bit, but still. So they perceived Abraham and Sarah merely as matter and form; they were not concrete personalities but represented ideas. Abraham is matter and Sarah is form.
[Speaker C] Those images regarding prophecies
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in Scripture—I’m not sure all this is based on Maimonides, I don’t know, I’m not sure. They rely on Maimonides; that is stated there explicitly, they rely on Maimonides. And Rashba does not deny that it is based on Maimonides, but he goes out against it in Sefer HaKena’ot, and there as well the Ramah, he too fought against this phenomenon. Anyone who wants can look here in the introduction to the novellae of the Ramah and methods of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) on tractate Gittin; there’s such a book that came out, I think it’s here. In the introduction there they speak a bit about it. The Ramah was a Jew people don’t know well enough.
[Speaker B] A very important Jew. In any
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] case, master of language.
[Speaker B] What? Master of language. Master of language.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Is that the interpretation of his name?
[Speaker B] Yes, yes—he was an authority, Rabbi Meir HaLevi Todros Abulafia.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] “All the philosophers in Israel observed Torah and commandments and were meticulous in fulfilling them, from Aristobulus and Philo the priest, who went up to Jerusalem to offer a sacrifice in the Temple, to the later ones.” Right? Meaning, there cannot be a disconnect between the world of action and the world of learning. And in the last paragraph here he speaks about the world of philosophy, not only about the world of study. What? That’s almost true, even though he himself, throughout the whole book, explains various Jews for whom the practical world was in fact not the strongest side. Hermann Cohen, for example; Spinoza I’m not sure, Immanuel Kant I’m not sure—that I don’t know, I’m not sure. But yes—meaning, he himself… well, really the question is how he relates to all these Jews who in practice were not religious Jews in the accepted sense, but whose philosophy definitely had Jewish characteristics. But okay, that’s really a comment we may discuss later when we get to those people. In any case, let’s come back: what exactly do we have here? Here we continue linking—not philosophy with Torah or with Scripture—but also the world of action. Meaning, this already stitches all the worlds together along one axis, one central bar. All the worlds are connected to one another. You cannot separate them. Someone who wants to engage in only one thing—he began in section 6 with the relation between philosophy and the text or between philosophy and Torah. Here he speaks about the relation between the text and action, which is perhaps some lower world, the world of doing. So in fact all the worlds must be connected; there is no disconnect. The ideas he brings are, among other things, also historical ideas—meaning, the fact that the archetypes and the people in the different fields usually stood out in all the fields. So what exactly is the role of action according to this view? Let’s go back for a moment to the issue of “what practical difference does it make?” that we began earlier.
[Speaker B] In a certain sense the question was the opposite: what is the role of thought? What? What is the role of thought?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, I always ask the question according to my own viewpoint. Action is reality; now what is the role of thought? To know how to act. There are those who think that thought is reality and ask what the role of action is. But that feeling can mislead. The question is what the initial assumption is. The conclusion is that both are important. My initial assumption, as someone who works in a laboratory… Fine. In any case, one really has to understand why these things are required. Why? So regarding “what practical difference does it make,” Rabbi Chaim, as is well known, whenever they asked him what practical difference some reasoning of his made, would say: what practical difference does it make for understanding the passage? What do you mean, “what practical difference does it make?” Am I talking to you now about practical Jewish law? We’re talking about how to understand things. So what’s this whole business of “what practical difference does it make?” What does it matter now? Whether you understand or don’t understand what I’m saying, agree or disagree—and that is the plane on which we’re discussing. On the other hand, of course, the Talmud / Talmudic text, as he himself says all the time, asks “what practical difference does it make?” What, Rabbi Chaim didn’t know those Talmudic passages? So come on. Rabbi Chaim came to emphasize one point, but there’s another point too. Rabbi Chaim wanted to emphasize that the matter in Torah study is a matter of intelligibles. And that is certainly Rabbi Chaim’s method. Meaning, he didn’t write some law code, some clear philosophical system, but he simply radiated this at every step. Is there anyone who would say that’s not true? What? In my humble opinion it is true too, but I don’t know, I’m not of his stature. I think so; I identify with it. In any case, no matter. Let’s see the whole picture. Then why really does the Talmud / Talmudic text keep asking “what practical difference does it make?” Because the conception is—and this is an interesting statement in itself—that there is no correct and meaningful distinction in the spiritual world that does not have practical consequences. There is no such thing. That is the whole essence of Torah. The whole essence of Torah is that the spiritual world is not some detached world where you can say whatever you want, as it sometimes seems to us when we study conceptual analysis. It is a world that will always also come to expression in the world of action. Now notice: I do not mean to say that the purpose of study is to know what to do. On the contrary. Action—I want to know. To know the world in an intelligible way, to engage in the activity of the intellect. But to know whether that intelligible insight is true, to know whether this distinction is correct, whether it exists, whether it has a root. An existing distinction is not some “correct” thing the way philosophers do it. An existing distinction is reality. There is such a distinction in the world. There is in the world a distinction between a law that applies to the person and a law that applies to the object. If there are these two laws, or there aren’t these two laws—but they exist—that is a reality. A reality in the world that must have expression on the practical plane. That is the whole essence of Torah, this connection between thought and the world of action.
[Speaker B] In order then to go do the action afterward. I just want to find it in order to know that I distinguished correctly.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, just one second, it has to be taken stage by stage. So therefore when they ask “what practical difference does it make?”—the Talmud / Talmudic text asks this everywhere—people usually infer from this as though the whole Talmud / Talmudic text comes only to write a law code of how one should behave, like what someone said earlier. But that’s not true. “What practical difference does it make?” means that the separation between the intellectual world and the world of action belongs to philosophers, and that is not Torah. But that does not mean that the entire purpose is only to know what to do—at least it doesn’t say that. I also think that’s not true, but at the very least it doesn’t say that. What it does say is that there is no correct distinction on the abstract, theoretical, philosophical plane that has no root in the practical world. There is no such thing; otherwise it has no root, it does not exist. Meaning, the distinctions are not detached intellectual ideas. They must be something that comes to expression in the world. That is why the world was created. The world was created in order to realize, in order in some sense to embody, the ideas.
[Speaker B] So—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] therefore, if it does not come to expression in the practical world, then it does not exist. This perhaps requires here… from the fleshy, bodily picture I need to understand how the spiritual worlds are built. So it’s a kind of indication for my intellectual-spiritual inquiry.
[Speaker B] But on the other hand, the whole purpose is to understand this distinction in practice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That is the purpose, so that the intellectual inquiry will be carried out from within a world of practice. Therefore the purpose of the practical world?
[Speaker B] Is for the indication? The practical world is for everything.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. The intellectual inquiry—or the Torah inquiry; “intellectual” has a somewhat foreign connotation—the rational inquiry, let’s call it, into the spiritual worlds, comes in those terms.
[Speaker B] We need to grasp them in the concepts of this world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In action, in action. Those are the concepts. The concepts of this world are ox, pit—those are the concepts.
[Speaker B] You’re saying there is an ox—no, certainly not.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] It can’t even be only an individual case. The sin-offering of an anointed priest, the Sinai ox—the Talmud / Talmudic text remains with it; the fact is that it asks: by how many is the Sinai ox judged? The Sinai ox is dead—what do I care? It will never happen again. True—but it was. At Mount Sinai it was. Meaning, there was a reality in which there would certainly be an implication. There may be other implications too, yes, but I’m only using it as an example.
[Speaker B] What do you mean, it has an implication? Of course not. Like if a vow is resolved intent and all sorts of things like that—suppose if there weren’t, suppose there were no practical difference regarding some woman—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, I’m not talking about marriage betrothal. Marriage betrothal is just a trick. I’m talking about a real practical difference.
[Speaker B] The Ran there—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] asks about a real-world case that would be understood differently depending on whether we grasp it this way or that way.
[Speaker B] Are there things in the world or are there no things in the world?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can understand—what, they never were and also never will be?
[Speaker B] They won’t be.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Why do I care that they won’t be?
[Speaker B] But why weren’t they ever? What is this place still within the plain meaning if such things never existed?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the ox serves me as a means, as a means of understanding.
[Speaker B] Not as the thing understood itself. Certainly. Therefore the Talmud / Talmudic text keeps asking “what practical difference does it make?”
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying: the Talmud / Talmudic text asks “what practical difference does it make?” because the Talmud / Talmudic text claims that it may be—or at least claims—that the goal is also the final action. You’re right. But there is no such thing as a correct understanding if you cannot find for it expression in the practical world. Now, not an expression that you must encounter in your own life, but it must come to expression in the concepts of this world. Like an ox that stood by Mount—
[Speaker B] Sinai. It certainly is in the concepts of this world. I didn’t invent the concept of an ox. An ox is a concept of this world.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So now you’re taking it a bit further. You may be right.
[Speaker B] What does it mean to invent the concept of an ox?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You can’t invent the concept of an ox. If there is no such concept, you won’t be able to invent it either. How far exactly to take this, I don’t know. But that’s the principle. Reality was created in order to understand the ideas. Why not? Reality was created in order to represent the ideas tangibly. It’s something reversed. The question is whether—
[Speaker B] this world is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] in order to realize—
[Speaker B] those ideas embodied in distinctions by means of action. Not in order to realize, no. The opposite. In order, from within a practical world, to reach the distinctions.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Listen, the Rabbi took the question, and the point here, and what he gives here, is—
[Speaker B] is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] not that in the end the philosopher also went and offered a sacrifice. Not that he thought about sacrifice. No, no—wait. Come on, let’s move ahead for a moment. One second. I haven’t finished yet. You want to get to action? Wait—we’ll get there in just a second, we’ll get there in just a second. First of all, that’s why I started from “what practical difference does it make?” After that comes the next stage. Until now we’ve been talking about “what practical difference does it make?” First of all, the question “what practical difference does it make?” is an indication for the question whether the reasoning you are giving is correct or not. So I’m saying: why? Because a correct reasoning must have a practical difference. There is no correct reasoning without a practical difference. It cannot be. Not because the purpose of the reasoning is the practical difference, but because—
[Speaker B] without there being—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] a practical difference, the reasoning is not…
[Speaker B] But if the study is correct? No, wait, wait.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] We’re talking about the next stage of doing, wait. If there is a theoretical practical difference, what does that change? Meaning, what does the fact that there is a theoretical practical difference do? It could be that you’re right—so what is the practical difference between them? Again, not merely to say the… I can say that hearing… fine, so therefore it has to be in the form of a practical difference, that’s okay. A theoretical practical difference is okay. Right, that may also be okay, right. Meaning, we enter into an abstract world that has no… no, it’s not abstract. The opposite of abstract. It won’t exist, but it is the opposite of abstract. A stubborn and rebellious son is a very concrete thing. We understand it very well, in our concepts, everything is clear. True, as a historical case it didn’t happen. So what?
[Speaker B] But the essential fact is that it would happen. The essence… a practical difference doesn’t have to be that it falls and bang-bang-bang. Fine, that makes sense, okay.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If you can imagine such a thing in your own concepts, then fine.
[Speaker B] According to those who say that a stubborn and rebellious son never was and never will be. Yes. So that itself is a practical difference—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, why not? That’s fine.
[Speaker B] Yes, yes, it never was and never will be. Fine, doesn’t matter, it’ll still be—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it will—but it’s important to me as a world-foundation that such a situation, in this world, did not happen and will not happen. Fine, fine.
[Speaker B] Because a stubborn and rebellious son, conceptually, is very concrete. Right. But it’s theoretical, it’s logical.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but that is the practical difference—again. Because the understandings themselves are not formulated in the form of a practical difference. The understandings themselves are understandings. There always has to be a formulation of a practical difference in concepts. Why? Because it must have some expression in tangible concepts. It must.
[Speaker B] Let’s say a practical difference for a person who will never die. There won’t be such a practical difference. I understand what a person who will never die is—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But there won’t be such a practical difference.
[Speaker B] Maybe there is even in that case a practical difference, again.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There won’t be such a thing. No, there won’t be such a practical difference in the Talmud / Talmudic text.
[Speaker B] A stubborn and rebellious son isn’t a practical difference involving something descending from the clouds.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Was there ever such a thing? The Talmud / Talmudic text in tractate Menachot talks about wheat that descended from the clouds, from the clouds—arrives… apparently, I don’t know. Examples in the Talmud / Talmudic text. There are various other things too. Somewhere else the Talmud / Talmudic text also says something about the moon—the moon in tractate Berakhot, something about the moon.
[Speaker B] No, a stubborn and rebellious son isn’t like that, because it isn’t illogical. It expresses a reality that can be expressed in another way, in a similar way. It’s an external expression with an assurance that it won’t occur; that’s not the essence of things that don’t occur. A stubborn and rebellious son… yes, but the reason it doesn’t happen is a non-accidental reason.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but the question is: how can someone tell you from now that it never will occur?
[Speaker B] And that’s exactly the point, because it’s not something logical that it won’t happen. Presumably there’s some received tradition that such a thing will never happen.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Or perhaps what here—I think correctly—logically it doesn’t say, but something spiritual seems to him that it cannot happen. Otherwise what is it? Prophecy? It’s some such received tradition. I don’t know. Okay, never mind.
[Speaker B] Fine, okay. There’s this place…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, let’s keep going. We’re still in the world of study. Obviously this has practical significance, and we need to understand what’s happening here. This statement that he continues with—or maybe let’s move on for a moment to the next passage, really one passage after another: if the Patriarchs and those who gave the Torah were themselves a living, spiritual, and intellectual law. This conception of Abraham and Sarah as matter and form is a conception that draws from parts of Maimonides. It’s not certain that Maimonides himself held this way. It doesn’t seem from his words that he speaks this way also about the Bible or about the Torah itself. Hints, maybe. But about sayings of the Sages he definitely says it explicitly, that many sayings of the Sages are only allegories and not things that actually happened. Earlier he says that whoever thinks they really happened belongs to the class of fools. But regarding the Bible, no—I at least don’t know of any clear proof that Maimonides says that here. The simple reasoning is that it’s not so, and Maimonides doesn’t say anywhere that it is so, I think. At least not from what I know.
[Speaker B] There are a lot of statements like that in the Rabbi’s writings…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, yes… that’s what we thought… like a donkey…
[Speaker B] After all, today… it was said as an allegorical hint…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s exactly what the Rabbi just did now. He turned the spiritual concept—in other words, he spoke about it as a parable.
[Speaker B] No, no, a spiritual concept isn’t a parable; a spiritual concept exists. Wait, wait, that’s exactly the point.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Exactly, now I’m getting to that. Today it’s very popular to smash myths. This is basically the first myth-smashing, this whole thing. Today they say Trumpeldor did say it, didn’t say it, there was some accepted Russian expression before he died, “It is good to die for our country,” Marie Antoinette, or all those myths that everybody grew up on—today history enthusiasts love to smash them. You can’t base an article on whether Trumpeldor said, “It is good to die for our country,” everybody knows that. Just base an article on the fact that he cursed in Russian. In any case—so what? At first glance, myth-smashing is a very strange thing. You can’t really smash a myth. How do you smash a myth? Does the myth of Trumpeldor really depend on the question of whether he said it or didn’t say it? Why is that interesting at all? What, Trumpeldor never existed? What people want to educate toward through the myth—the value they want to instill. An illustration of something else. Exactly, that’s it. Now I’m coming back to it; this is a direct continuation of the previous class. The value that we want to instill through this myth—or that those who told it wanted to instill in the masses—was the value of self-sacrifice for the Land of Israel, for the people, for the homeland, and so on. That value doesn’t depend on whether Trumpeldor existed or didn’t exist; he’s a means of illustrating it. Right? So now you can argue historically whether Trumpeldor existed or didn’t, whether he said it or didn’t, all those arguments—it could be yes, it could be no. Is that at all connected to the question of whether the value is right or not? But the fact is, if you pay attention, that in reality it is connected. After all, those who don’t believe in the value forcefully smash the historical myth too. Why do you care? There was some idiot named Trumpeldor and he said, “It is good to die for our country,” and in fact he was an idiot—we should be smart and not die for our country. If you’re arguing on the level of values, what does that have to do with the historical argument? Why do you smash the historical reality in that context? You can—if by chance you believe both that the historical reality is that way and that you disagree with the value, then fine. But why do they always go together? Why is it that whoever accepts the value also believes Trumpeldor existed and yells at the myth-smashers, and whoever doesn’t accept the value also makes sure to smash the historical basis for the value?
[Speaker B] Ah, here it’s simple, it’s obvious. Why is it that all those people who make “Revival” also happen to be leftists and anti-Zionists? How did it just accidentally happen that someone makes “Revival”? No, really, this represents a worldview and that represents a worldview.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, that still hasn’t put its finger on the point. The myth of Trumpeldor also came as a worldview; it wasn’t accidental. And that’s the understanding of myth when people think this is smashing a myth.
[Speaker B] No, they want to smash the value.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] These guys are post-Zionists, not post-Trumpeldorians.
[Speaker B] They want to smash the value by—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] By smashing the myth of Trumpeldor for the sake of post-Zionism? So I’ll tell you what the value is. They—I’ll tell you what the value is. No, it wasn’t for the sake of smashing.
[Speaker B] No, they think perfectly reasonably.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you why they think reasonably. Not because they’re stupid and I’m also stupid—that’s one possibility, but since there’s also a statement about me, I’m not inclined toward it. What I think is more correct is that they understand and I understand too. Maybe not on the surface, but if you think a little, you understand. There is no valid myth that didn’t exist in reality. Meaning, a myth that grips people is something that had existence. A detached idea won’t catch on, and it won’t catch on because it isn’t true. Not because it isn’t accidental. This is not a psychological characterization. There’s a philosophical claim here. Meaning, something that has no real root in the reality of the world also can’t be an idea that grips people. Because an idea that grips people, a true idea, is an idea that must have expression in the practical world. Yes, everything. Everything. There was some kind of expression—I don’t know, we have to understand, it could even be that all the expressions they talk about, I don’t dismiss that out of hand at all. There are different periods; what do you know about what was? There were miracles everywhere. Suddenly all kinds of forces from known history that supposedly stopped.
[Speaker B] But suddenly all kinds of miracles. Huh? Maybe in that generation it really was true.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the question is simply how it is grasped so powerfully. I don’t believe that something can really be grasped powerfully and this be just psychology. This is a philosophical worldview, the same worldview I’m talking about here. Meaning, there is no true idea that doesn’t have some root in reality. We’ve really talked about this a lot here, in all kinds of shades and variations of this issue. That conceptual things that take hold have something true in them. We of course continue one step further—we say that the fact that they have something true in them also means that they have to have expression in the practical world. Now pay attention here: I’m showing you a picture of a worldview, or a perspective in a certain sense, from arguments of… meaning, in rational myth-smashing, I think humor actually shows this very strongly. Otherwise, why do you care? Let those people say Trumpeldor said it, and those people say Trumpeldor didn’t say it. Once, announce to the public: Ladies and gentlemen, don’t be idiots, it doesn’t say Trumpeldor. Trumpeldor never existed. And the other one says, I sat by his grave—fine. But I want to tell you that it is good to die for our country; that’s what I wanted to tell you. Trumpeldor is a nice story for children, and that’s nice, and it’s all good, and perfectly fine—except for Trumpeldor, except for Trumpeldor.
[Speaker B] Wait, and I’ll tell you—listen, you’re not a coward—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] With Trumpeldor, I’m saying this on the intellectual plane. But why do we all feel otherwise? Why do we all feel otherwise? Yes, I think so. Everyone is outraged when they hear this myth-smashing, those for whom Zionist values matter. Obviously that’s the case. Why is that the case? Because there’s no such thing; real values are only something that has expression in the world of action. And this is a feeling that people usually may not be aware of. I’m using their behavior to show things that maybe—I’m not saying they sat there thinking to themselves, wait, if this wasn’t in the practical world then apparently it’s not a true value. I’m not claiming that people think that. Rather, you see that they feel there is a connection between smashing the historical event and the value. And on the face of it, that’s very strange. To them it isn’t strange; they don’t think about it at all. But in truth, if you think about this reality, it points to something much deeper. It points to something that people have, some inner intuition, and the Holy One, blessed be He, placed it in their souls. It isn’t an accidental feeling. It’s the conception we’re talking about now. There is no true idea that does not come to expression in the practical world, on one level or another. Obviously this is the whole argument in Trumpeldor—but again, Trumpeldor is a good example, because it does depend on that. If none of it existed, then something here was not created. Meaning—
[Speaker C] So now you’re telling me that everything that exists in reality is good because it comes from the Holy One, blessed be He?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not necessarily. I don’t know. It could be that there are also forces of evil; maybe there are such things too. But that still isn’t proof that it’s a good thing. Hitler also existed in reality; that still doesn’t mean I need to join him, to look for—
[Speaker B] What’s true in it, that it’s good, and so on. Fine.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] There’s something here, there’s something here that may be true, possibly. Yes, I’m not afraid to say that there’s something true in it; I think there is. Something about the phenomenon of some significant event that is accepted by a public—maybe not a private individual, but it’s very hard to draw boundaries here. I don’t know how to draw definitions. Even earlier when Itai spoke, it was hard to draw definitions. But it’s very important to pay attention to these principles. I think this is the whole Torah, really. It’s simply the essence of the whole Torah conception as against all the other abstract conceptions—or not against all of them, but against many. The connection between the spiritual world and the practical world is necessary; it’s one-to-one. Meaning, there is no such thing—this is the practical upshot, this is the same thing, this is the continuation. The Patriarchs were themselves a living, spiritual, and intellectual law. Why? Why are we all so moved by this? I started with myths, and now I can’t stop. Why are we all so stirred up by the claim that Abraham and Sarah were matter and form? Why should I care? After all, what I need is to learn from this Bible what I need to learn in Bible classes, fine. So we can give all those classes even if Abraham and Sarah never existed—what difference does it make? If this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants to teach me through the Bible. Meaning, if you insist that the Holy One, blessed be He, gave the Bible, then I understand. But why do you care whether Abraham and Sarah are concrete figures or whether they represent ideas of matter and form? What difference does it make? The point is exactly the same point. Why did Rashba object to this conception? And all the great sages of Israel who objected. Maimonides too—I don’t know another source in Maimonides, he doesn’t write it—but they object because this cannot be. It cannot be that there would be a true conception without there having been an event in reality that is its root. Abraham and Sarah are indeed the root; they can be the root of matter and form, fine. But a root is something in reality. Meaning, a representation in reality, some real anchor of the abstract idea. A concrete expression, an embodiment of the abstract idea.
[Speaker B] Expression in practice. What?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Expression in practice, yes, that’s exactly the point. Because after all, I’m saying—just like Trumpeldor, though of course with all due distinction. There are two planes here. Why should we care about the myth-smashing of Abraham and Sarah if all you want from the Torah is just to learn what they did? The description exists in any case, and the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Torah so that we would study it, so why should we care whether He invented two figures like Abraham and Sarah and created some mythology of our own?
[Speaker B] What difference does it make? The main thing is to be in practice. The main thing is to be in practice. Fine—if our forefather Abraham were here, he would finish it off. Behavior as ideology.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Now we’ll move on to the third stage. Philosophers in Israel were observant of Torah and commandments and meticulous in their observance, and so on. There’s this expression from the Talmud, “Study is greater, for study leads to action.” That appears, of course, in the second passage, not the fourth. But that expression contains an internal contradiction. Were you here in the Rabbi’s class about study and action? No.
[Speaker B] “Study is greater because it leads to action” sounds like a contradiction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Ah, it really is an internal contradiction. If study is greater only because it leads to action, then how is it greater? If action is what’s greater? The answer is exactly—yes. The answer is exactly that, but you have to pay attention to the point of the combination. Meaning, this is Rabbi Avin of Shantz’s statement, which we also mentioned, I believe, last time, regarding analytical inquiry. We are used to thinking in a dichotomous way. So either study or action. Which is greater? So either this or that, and the logic demands: if this, then not that, and if that, then not this. No. Study is greater because it leads to action. Which study is the greater one? The one that leads to action. What does that mean? When you study philosophy or you study something else, it’s not something that leads to action. Then your study isn’t worth anything either. Meaning, the essence of—and study is great, but it is great because it… has practical implications; it leads to action. Meaning, that really testifies to the greatness of study, not that study is merely an instrument. But you don’t.
