Torah and Science, Lesson 5
This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.
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Table of Contents
- Mapping the types of conflicts between Torah and science
- Scientific statements by the sages and the assumption of non-correspondence
- A halakhic practical difference: “what should be done” versus “what is done in practice”
- The authority of the Talmud, the nullification of the rationale, and disputes among halakhic decisors
- An error from the outset versus a change in reality, and the concern about a head-on clash with the Talmud
- Rabbi Eliyahu Zini’s position and the response to it
- The presumption that “a person does not repay before the due date” and the role of facts versus norm
- The naturalistic fallacy and the “bridge principle” as the Torah within the passage
- Who is authorized to determine a change in reality, and the attitude toward multiple customs
- The Written Torah and creative interpretation according to Maimonides
- Foundations of faith: Mount Sinai, obligation, and the limit of emptying history of content
- Belief in God versus science: evolution, Dawkins, and the assumption of a false choice
- Criticism of “randomness” in evolution and of the use of statistics
- Strengthening the argument from design and the parable of the “list of laws”
Summary
General Overview
The speaker maps the conflicts between Torah and science into three types and explains that regarding scientific statements by the sages of the Talmud, medieval authorities (Rishonim), and later authorities (Acharonim), he does not seek harmony and does not view this as a Torah-and-science problem, because the sages relied on the knowledge of their time. He distinguishes between the question of “what should be done” and the question of “what is done in practice” when there is a halakhic practical difference, and illustrates this with the issue of killing a louse on the Sabbath and with disputes among halakhic decisors about the authority of the Talmud versus factual error. He argues that the main authority of the sages lies in normative determinations, not in determinations of reality, explains this through the presumption that “a person does not repay before the due date,” and formulates a structure in which the “bridge principle” between facts and norms is the Torah within the passage. He sets up a greater difficulty regarding apparent contradictions in the Written Torah, notes Maimonides’ approach of creative interpretation but insists that it must be credible, and finally defines the truly central problems as the foundations of faith, illustrating this through a discussion of God versus evolution, where in his view both sides mistakenly assume that one must choose between evolution and God.
Mapping the Types of Conflicts Between Torah and Science
The speaker divides the conflicts into three types: clashes with scientific statements or assumptions of sages from different generations, things that seem mistaken in the Torah itself, and challenges to the foundations of faith such as Torah from Heaven, the revelation at Mount Sinai, and challenges from archaeology and history, with the possibility of also including questions like free will. He emphasizes that Torah and science are not only about conflicts, but mapping the conflicts begins with this classification. He presents this categorization as the basis for discussion on the broad level before entering the details.
Scientific Statements by the Sages and the Assumption of Non-Correspondence
The speaker “removes from the list” the type of conflict in which the Talmud or the medieval and later authorities said something that seems scientifically incorrect, because he does not assume in advance that there needs to be harmony. He describes an alternative approach in which people look for solutions when there is no harmony, but states that he does not enter into that move because in his view there is no reason to expect sages to possess scientific knowledge beyond their environment. He explains that the sages of earlier generations too were rooted in the knowledge of their time, just as today’s sages rely on contemporary experts, and therefore he refuses to classify this as a Torah-and-science problem.
A Halakhic Practical Difference: “What Should Be Done” Versus “What Is Done in Practice”
The speaker divides the discussion into two planes when there is a halakhic implication: the principled plane of “what should be done” and the practical plane of “what is done in practice.” He brings the example of lice on the Sabbath, corrects himself, and states that on the plane of “what should be done,” it is forbidden to kill a louse on the Sabbath when, according to the best of our knowledge, it is a creature born in the normal way, so the update is toward stringency. He explains that the practical question depends on the rules by which Jewish law operates and on the authority of the Talmud, and notes that most halakhic decisors tend to act like the Talmud, especially when the result is more stringent, even though he points out that the situation may actually be problematic if this is in fact a Torah prohibition that we would violate because of authority.
The Authority of the Talmud, the Nullification of the Rationale, and Disputes Among Halakhic Decisors
The speaker states that the Talmud has authority not because it is necessarily correct but because “we accepted its authority upon ourselves,” and therefore it may be that in practice people continue to rule in accordance with it even when the factual determination behind it appears mistaken. He says he tends to think that where it is clear that the normative ruling rests on a factual determination that is incorrect, there is no need for “another court to permit it,” but he admits that the issue is complex and examples can be brought in both directions. He mentions the dispute between Maimonides and the Raavad on the question of changing enactments when the rationale has fallen away, and presents Maimonides’ view that even if the rationale is gone, the enactment does not lapse, with a distinction between Torah-level laws and rabbinic enactments and decrees. He adds examples of areas involving experiments and factual questions such as absorption in utensils, mentions Spitzer who is conducting experiments, and Rabbi Yaakov Ariel who says that once they said “metal,” then it is “metal,” and presents this as a halakhic conception with which he disagrees.
An Error from the Outset Versus a Change in Reality, and the Concern About a Head-On Clash with the Talmud
The speaker distinguishes between a situation in which reality has changed and a situation in which “it becomes clear to me that there was an error from the outset,” and asks whether in such a case one still needs “another court” to permit it. He says that many halakhic decisors still require such a court, while he himself, “the lesser one,” thinks not, while presenting both sides of the discussion. He adds another consideration: concern about undermining halakhic authority. If they prohibit something that the Talmud explicitly permitted, people may then go on to permit things that the Talmud prohibited. He brings an analogy from the issue of Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua regarding the sanctification of the month and to the idea of authority even when the public “saw” an error.
Rabbi Eliyahu Zini’s Position and the Response to It
It is reported in the name of Rabbi Eliyahu Zini that it is not plausible that a dispute in the Talmud would be an independent scientific dispute; rather, the sages relied on the scientific knowledge of their time and disputed its interpretation, and in the case of the louse it may be a question of defining the “status of an animal” with respect to a parasitic creature. The speaker does not fully agree and emphasizes that the language of the Talmud attributes to the louse not being born from parents, and he sees this as speculation in line with the knowledge of that period. He reinforces his basic premise that there is no reason to assume the sages knew what people of their time did not know, and therefore even if one finds an explanation that reconciles their words with reality, there is no reason to assume that in advance.
The Presumption That “A Person Does Not Repay Before the Due Date” and the Role of Facts Versus Norm
The speaker brings the passage in tractate Bava Batra about “a person does not repay before the due date” and explains that circumstances can change such that people do repay early, and he even raises the theoretical possibility of a change in human nature. He emphasizes that the main issue in the passage is not an eternal psychological-factual determination but a normative determination: “a presumption can remove something from the current possessor,” and the statement “a person does not repay before the due date” is a formulation of a case that serves a general principle. He argues that even if the factual assessment changes, this is not a deviation from the Talmud because its authority is focused on the normative plane, while defining “what counts as a presumption” depends on the assessment of reality in a given time and place.
The Naturalistic Fallacy and the “Bridge Principle” as the Torah Within the Passage
The speaker cites “Hume’s naturalistic fallacy” in order to say that one does not derive a normative conclusion from a fact without some evaluative bridge assumption. He describes a structure in which there is a factual assumption, a bridge assumption connecting facts to norm, and a normative conclusion, and defines the “bridge principle” as the Torah within the passage. He argues that the facts are not Torah and that the conclusion depends on the facts, while the connecting principle is what is preserved and reapplied in different circumstances. He applies this also to the louse and says that the factual determination given by the sages is not the Torah within the passage, whereas the halakhic principle relating to a creature of a certain type is the normative determination.
Who Is Authorized to Determine a Change in Reality, and the Attitude Toward Multiple Customs
The speaker does not enter into a ruling on who in a community is authorized to determine that the factual basis has changed, and distinguishes between discussion with a halakhic decisor and a situation in which “everyone” rules for himself. He says he does not see a disaster in people acting differently when this is done within halakhic considerations and within the framework of a halakhic dispute. He presents the view that multiple rulings do not necessarily amount to breaking Torah into “two Torahs” in a way that should cause panic, as long as the debate rests on the rules of Jewish law.
The Written Torah and Creative Interpretation According to Maimonides
The speaker says that clashes with the Written Torah are more difficult, because one cannot say that the Holy One, blessed be He, “made a mistake” on the factual plane. He notes that Maimonides is not alarmed by a contradiction between the plain meaning of the Torah and scientific-philosophical views that seem correct, and offers a solution of creative interpretation of the Torah. He emphasizes that creative interpretation must “hold water” and be credible as the intent of the verse, and not serve as an arbitrary substitute such as what he sees as an unserious solution of the type “Amalek means the Amalek in your heart.” He states that every contradiction requires individual examination, because not every interpretation will be able to justify itself as an understanding of the Torah’s intent.
Foundations of Faith: Mount Sinai, Obligation, and the Limit of Emptying History of Content
The speaker presents the foundations of faith as the most critical area: belief in the Holy One, blessed be He, the revelation at Mount Sinai, and Torah from Heaven, and emphasizes that these are not solved by creative interpretation that empties the historical event of content. He argues that giving up Mount Sinai undermines obligation itself, even if one manages to “get along with the verses,” because the foundation is what we bring to the verses and is not only a product of them. He mentions Rabbi Amit Kula’s book Was It or Was It Not, which describes a thought experiment of emptying the factual foundation out of tradition until only metaphors remain, and argues that he partly agrees with emptying out details but is not willing to give up foundations which, if abandoned, mean “nothing is left.” He warns against magical techniques that promise to solve everything all at once but end up “throwing out the baby with the bathwater.”
Belief in God Versus Science: Evolution, Dawkins, and the Assumption of a False Choice
The speaker presents the classic modern challenge of the last hundred years surrounding evolution and the Big Bang, and explains that evolution at most purports to undermine a certain kind of proof for God’s existence. He divides proofs into three types: the ontological, the cosmological, and the physico-theological proof from design/complexity, and adds other possibilities such as the moral argument, the argument from tradition, and the approach that no proofs are needed because faith is direct. He argues that even if evolution demolished the argument from design, it would at most remove “proof number three” and would not create an all-encompassing Torah-and-science problem. He adds that in his opinion evolution does not even demolish that argument but rather strengthens it, because a deterministic description of laws of nature leading from a cosmic starting point to a complex world highlights design rather than erasing it.
Criticism of “Randomness” in Evolution and of the Use of Statistics
The speaker argues that there is “nothing random” in any deep sense in the evolutionary process on the macroscopic level, and attributes genuine randomness mainly to the microscopic quantum level. He distinguishes between the use of statistics and essential randomness, and illustrates this with the rolling of a die, where the statistics stem from computational complexity rather than indeterminism. He describes the three components of evolution as he presents them: the emergence of mutations, natural selection, and genetics, and explains that natural selection alone is not enough without the transmission of traits across generations. He argues that the evolutionary mechanism is “a summary of a great many deterministic laws,” and therefore does not offer an alternative that removes a guiding hand, but at most describes the way things operate.
Strengthening the Argument from Design and the Parable of the “List of Laws”
The speaker presents the view that the more science provides an orderly description of the process from the Big Bang to life, the more it “improves the proof” of God’s existence rather than “thinning it out.” He uses the parable of a factory functioning according to written rules and argues that pointing to rules does not replace the question of the source of the rules, “who wrote the list of laws.” He criticizes the discourse between creationists and neo-Darwinians as one that mistakenly assumes one must choose “either evolution or God,” and argues that the shared mistake of both sides is the very assumption that the two cannot go together. He concludes that this is an example of a foundational problem in which “both the attackers and the defenders are mistaken,” because the conflict is built on a false premise.
Full Transcript
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Time-out from last time, a short time-out, and now we’re returning to the track of Torah and science. I tried to give some brief introduction about science, philosophy, or logic, and in the end, where we’re standing right now, I’ll summarize briefly. So if we want to map the conflicts—and really, Torah and science are not only conflicts, I’ll talk about that in a moment—but if we want to map the conflicts, then we have to divide them into a few types. One type is clashes with scientific statements of sages, starting from the sages of the Talmud, medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), and so on, or scientific assumptions of sages. The second type is things that apparently seem mistaken in the Torah itself. That’s the second type. The third type concerns what I might call the foundations of faith—Torah from Heaven, the revelation at Mount Sinai, challenges from archaeology, history, things of that sort. That’s science in a somewhat broader sense, and maybe you could even include free will here, yes, freedom of choice, things of that kind, which are broader scientific-philosophical questions. That might be called a third type. Those are, all in all, more or less, it seems to me, the major categories. So let’s deal with them first on the broad level. So on the broad level, if we’re talking about statements of the sages—for which I made the time-out last time—then it seems to me that I would erase that from the list. I’m not looking at all for a solution to a situation in which the Talmud, or medieval authorities, or later authorities said something that seems to me incorrect scientifically. And that’s an important point, because I’m talking right now about the starting point, not the bottom line. There really are people whose starting point is that there has to be harmony. Now, in some place you see that there isn’t harmony, so you look for a solution: either science is wrong, or the sages didn’t mean what it seems to us they meant; and either you find a solution or you don’t—sometimes it’s convincing, sometimes less convincing. I’m not going to look for the solution at all. I’m not going to look for the solution because I don’t think in advance that there’s supposed to be harmony. And that is the conclusion that comes out of our previous meeting, and it’s an important point, because I could bring many examples—I already said I’m not going to go into it—but I can bring quite a lot of examples of things that seem mistaken in the Talmud, and in the medieval authorities and later authorities, and so on. Now, on each of them people can argue with me from now until forever. It could be that they meant this, and maybe it isn’t certain, and maybe it is certain, and it could be that it’s actually true. But I don’t want to enter that argument at all, because it doesn’t matter to me. Meaning, if it’s true, that’s surprising. I’m not saying there has to be harmony and then, if there isn’t, we need a very difficult explanation and I start looking for solutions. Why should there be? From the outset the starting point is different. Since today’s sages arrive at their scientific conclusions by consulting people who understand these things, they are a product of the knowledge of our time—which may also perhaps change later on, it’s even likely that it will change over the course of history—so too, sages in previous generations, to the best of my understanding, were rooted in the knowledge of their own time, and that is more or less what they knew. Therefore I refuse to classify this problem as a Torah-and-science problem. I’m not talking about the question of solutions. This is not a Torah-and-science problem. Yes.
[Speaker C] Fine, but what happens when there’s a very clear halakhic practical implication?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So when there’s a halakhic practical implication, you also have to divide the discussion into two. Meaning, one level of discussion is the question of what should be done, and the second discussion is what to do. Right, true.
[Speaker C] Give me the classic example of lice.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, yes, that’s the classic example.
[Speaker C] So what do you do? Is it permitted now or forbidden?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Look, I’d divide it into two. Meaning, on one of them I’m completely sure; on the other I’m only almost sure. As for “what should be done,” it’s obvious that it is forbidden to kill a louse on the Sabbath. In terms of “what should be done.” Yes, because that’s a scientific error. What?
[Speaker B] Yes, but you said the opposite.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Stop, sorry—I said permitted; I obviously meant forbidden. So in this case, of course, the update is an update toward stringency, not toward leniency. Now the question of what to do in practice is a harder question, because that is a question of how Jewish law operates. Now there are rules in Jewish law that also apply to things that…
[Speaker D] What’s the issue with lice? The sages of the Talmud said it’s permitted.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I also talked about—I also mentioned this Maimonides about creeping creatures that are born in fruit, or things of that kind that seem scientifically incorrect. And this is not Torah-level law in the sense that—it’s not a rabbinic enactment, but it also isn’t that the sages decided there’s such-and-such a Torah prohibition. Rather, the halakhic criterion and its historical source perhaps do not coincide. The halakhic criterion is Torah-level, but its source is in the sages. Meaning, the sages interpreted the Torah that way in light of what they understood. So regarding the louse, that means—again—regarding what should be, it seems to me that if this is our best understanding, and this is what we think—maybe we’re mistaken, that’s always possible—but this is what we think and know to the best of our knowledge, then that’s what we’re supposed to do. A judge has only what his eyes can see. Now you’re asking me, practically, what to do. So since the Talmud has a certain authority—and I also talked about this—and I said that the Talmud has authority not because it is correct, but because we accepted its authority upon ourselves, that can also have implications here. Since here, for example, I think the Talmud is not correct, on the other hand that doesn’t automatically mean it has no authority. Therefore, in practice, if you ask what should be done, then most halakhic decisors say that one should behave like the Talmud—certainly here, where it’s only toward stringency, meaning that the change will be toward stringency. Here, for some reason, that seems easier to them. By the way, I’m not sure this is the easier case, but that’s another discussion, because basically if I kill a louse on the Sabbath, if the truth is that this is a Torah prohibition, then I have actually violated a Torah prohibition because the Talmud has authority. The opposite case, in a certain sense, would actually be easier. But that’s the usual way of looking at it.
[Speaker E] But don’t you need a distinction between, say, a case like this where the sages come and give a rationale for what they say—they say, because such-and-such—so if it turns out that it isn’t such-and-such?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s the next sentence, I’m getting to that now. Meaning, on the second plane of the discussion—what to do in practice—I said that’s the view of most halakhic decisors. Personally, if you ask me, I tend to think that even in practice one may—must, not may—must be stringent. You can always be stringent, but you must be stringent. And lenient too, by the way. If it comes out lenient, then lenient too, exactly for the reason you said. Because the authority of the Talmud—and this is what I want to focus on for a moment—the authority of the Talmud is not in the realm of scientific determinations; it is in the realm of normative determinations. And where it is clear that the normative determination is the result of a factual determination that we think is incorrect, it doesn’t seem to me that here you need another court to permit it. True, something enacted by a court requires another court to permit it. But really this is a question where I can bring examples in both directions; it’s not a simple question. Now, these are well-known things, even Pachad Yitzchak.
[Speaker F] And there are things that are more severe, say—what’s your definition of leavened food? Absorption in utensils, all sorts of things. Are we going to say, wait a second, there’s no distinction between earthenware and metal or something, because we don’t measure absorption?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Spitzer is now doing various experiments in that area of absorption in utensils.
[Speaker B] And there’s Rabbi Yaakov Ariel, who said that once they said “metal,” then it’s metal.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so he said it, and others say differently. And no, I’m not dismissing it—that’s a conception.
[Speaker B] But what I meant to say is, he’s saying there isn’t some factual question here to check whether there is absorption or not. Rather, as the Rabbi said, on the halakhic plane they said—
[Speaker F] metal, so it’s metal. The absorption doesn’t matter.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think he’s right, but fine. I’m saying again, this is—
[Speaker F] That already joins all sorts of things in cooking and so on.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I agree, I can add a few more things to that list. I’m saying, in principle, the problem here, as I understand it at least, is only on the practical plane, not on the level of what should be. Say if there were a Sanhedrin today, for example, I have no doubt this would be changed. No doubt. If there is an authorized body, then something enacted by a court can be permitted by another court. And Maimonides writes explicitly, certainly in Torah-level law, that you do not have to be greater in wisdom and number in order to change the earlier ruling. Being greater in wisdom and number is only for enactments and decrees. Now, true, we do not have a Sanhedrin today, and because of that indeed many halakhic decisors—most of them, a large majority even—say no, even things like this cannot be changed. That is a halakhic conception. I don’t think so, but again, it is a halakhic conception that one can argue about on the plane of what to do in practice.
[Speaker C] So regarding stringency—for example, lice on the Sabbath—you now see the truth. The Torah said that on the Torah level it’s forbidden for you to do this.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Correct, so that’s what I noted earlier—that I think people actually think that in a case like this it’s easier, but in a case like this it’s more problematic. Because if I now—but why should you permit it?
[Speaker C] I don’t understand the basis for permitting it. Because the Talmud—what do you mean? But the Talmud didn’t have that knowledge. Fine, so you’re saying the Talmud—this works in reverse too. No, not in reverse; it works with authority nonetheless. So why is the authority here not in that?
[Speaker F] No, if anything, meaning if you know exactly that there is no basis here that can show even a trace of permission, there is no basis here. Yes, Aryeh.
[Speaker C] I apologize, but I asked the question and got—no, no, no, scientifically, scientifically. I asked Rabbi Eliyahu Zini this question about the louse, because as you know I like zoology, and he told me this, exactly as you’re saying: it cannot be that the dispute in the Talmud is a scientific dispute. After all, Rabbi Eliezer and Rabbi Yehoshua, I don’t know who they are there, can’t possibly have had their own scientific opinion, one saying this comes from decay and the other from mating. There’s no such thing. What are you talking about? I’m only quoting; I don’t understand. Yes, yes. He says if they had a scientific view, that means they dealt with it through a microscope or went and asked scientists. Presumably they didn’t deal with it that way, but rather both of them received the same scientific knowledge of that period and disagreed about its interpretation. A louse has two aspects. On the one hand, it’s a living creature in every respect, meaning it is born like anything else; but on the other hand it is compelled—it can’t live without the host, let’s say it’s a parasite, and there’s a creature without which it doesn’t exist. And according to this explanation—you may accept it or not—there’s a principled question: although it’s a creature that exists like any other creature, but it has no existence without parasitism, does it have the status of a living creature?
[Speaker E] And there are lots like that.
[Speaker C] And that is a halakhic dispute, not an ideological one, about the definition of what a living creature is. It’s not a dispute about the facts, because otherwise, Rabbi Eliyahu Zini told me, they would have quoted Dr. So-and-so and Professor So-and-so of that period instead of bringing it in tractate Shabbat.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, I don’t fully agree, but not really—I don’t fully agree. And it’s clear where they came from. They were simply speculating. They said that a louse is not born from parents, meaning it’s not because it’s parasitic. They said that, that is—
[Speaker C] Meaning it’s not only the question of whether that’s enough.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what they said. Everything beyond that is what he said. But what they said is written there. Now I say beyond that—that’s why I said, what is my starting point? My starting point is that I’m not looking for an explanation. Meaning, why assume they knew something that people didn’t know in their time? I’m saying further—it’s not that I’m looking for an answer and in the meantime haven’t found one.
[Speaker C] Meaning, because people in their time didn’t know it, why would they have known it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, why assume they knew at all? Based on what? After all, sages draw their scientific knowledge from their surroundings, so they too drew it from their surroundings. That’s obvious. Last time I gave examples of how Rav says he learned the defects of animals from a cattle herder, and others performed dissections in order to check zoology or physiology of animals. Meaning, obviously they learned the way anyone else learned. So what they knew is what people knew then, and from the outset the problem doesn’t bother me, and therefore I say I’m not discussing at all whether a certain answer is correct or not. On the contrary, in my eyes, if it turns out they were right, that would be really surprising. Meaning, I find it hard to believe. If someone brings me a good answer, I’ll have to reject it—because it isn’t plausible that they knew something that wasn’t known in their time. Therefore all these arguments that maybe they meant this and therefore it actually comes out right—even if that’s true, I have no reason to assume it. Meaning, why assume such a thing? But the question—
[Speaker F] The question before us is: on what basis can we rely on the halakhic decisors who permit it?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What do you mean? Who said you can rely on them? Everyone has to decide something else.
[Speaker F] I don’t hold that way, because according to this claim we know that it’s simply not true. So personally I know it’s not true, so it doesn’t matter if it’s an important decisor—what, a decisor doesn’t make mistakes?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Some of the decisors—there are those and there are those—some say not that it’s not true—
[Speaker F] Exactly, but practically, how do I rely on the decisor—let’s say if these are my decisors, yes, who permit it—how do I rely on them if I know they’re mistaken?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying again, they are not making a scientific claim. Some of them, again—there are some who say the Talmud is right and science is wrong. Fine. But there are others who say no, the Talmud probably missed it here, but the law established in the Talmud obligates us, even though it does not currently have the appropriate scientific basis. Since what the Talmud establishes has authority. That is a halakhic determination, not a scientific one, and it can be discussed. Maimonides and the Raavad disagree about it, in the context of changing enactments. If the rationale has fallen away, can you change the enactment even if you are not a court greater in wisdom and number, or not? And the position of Maimonides—and I think most halakhic decisors follow Maimonides—is that even if the rationale has fallen away, the enactment does not lapse. Meaning, there is not always a necessary connection between the factual basis or the reasoning and the outcome.
[Speaker C] And that makes sense when it’s an enactment, and usually an enactment is more stringent. Here it’s the opposite. Here with lice you’re permitting. Right. So suddenly you understand that this permission is based on lack of knowledge.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I can quote the Chazon Ish to you here. No, no, there is still a difference. An enactment has its force by virtue of the authority of the sages. But interpreting the Torah is ultimately an attempt to understand what the Holy One, blessed be He, wrote in the Torah. Now if I know today something they didn’t know, then apparently that’s what He wrote in the Torah. There is a difference between the two things. But where there is reasoning, that is unlike enactments and decrees.
[Speaker B] Huh? There’s reasoning? Yes. Even an enactment doesn’t—no, no. Decrees are enactments. Yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, the opposite. Decrees and enactments cannot be changed.
[Speaker B] But reasoning—if you have a court then yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Something enacted by a court can be permitted by another court, and it does not have to be greater in wisdom and number. It does not have to. No. That’s what he said.
[Speaker B] Now in Torah laws, is this—for example with lice—a matter of reasoning?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, it’s not a question of reasoning or not reasoning. The question is whether this is a Torah law or an enactment. In a Torah law you can. In an enactment you can’t. But again, what does “you can” mean?
[Speaker B] So I’m saying, if you can change—it’s not an enactment.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I defend positions I don’t agree with all the time. I don’t agree with them. I’m saying that what happens with lice is that we’re talking about a Torah law based on a perception of reality. Correct. Okay. So the right category is not a question of reasoning or no reasoning. Even at the root of a rabbinic law there are reasons. And when the reasoning changes, Maimonides says, the enactment still does not lapse; you need a court greater in wisdom and number. The Raavad disagrees. But in Torah laws, if our interpretation—let’s call it our interpretation—of the Torah changes, then it can be changed even though there is no court greater in wisdom and number. But a court is still required. Something enacted by a court needs another court to permit it. The question whether it needs to be greater in wisdom and number—that is the difference between Torah-level and rabbinic law. But you still simply need a court. Now here it’s even more than that, because what is a court?
[Speaker B] A court means the Great Court.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The same court in which the previous enactment was enacted. If the previous enactment was by the Great Court, then what is the Great Court? The Talmud is considered, halakhically speaking, like the Great Court that enacted. But here there is a more delicate point, and that’s why I say here I have a position, but there are other positions too. You can argue about it. In a place where it becomes clear to me that from the outset there was a mistake—not that reality changed, not that now the situation is perceived differently, the enactment or interpretation was correct for its time and now reality has changed. Those are questions of change in Jewish law. Questions of change in Jewish law are Maimonides and the Raavad in the laws of rebels. But here it becomes clear to me that from the outset the whole thing was based on an error. They simply didn’t know reality well enough. In a situation like that, do you also need another court to permit it? That is the question under discussion here. And many of the halakhic decisors say yes, you still need a court to permit it. I, the lesser one, think not. Fine—but I’m saying these are two sides.
[Speaker C] One thing is to prohibit—say, to permit, fine—but here it’s to prohibit.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The concern is that the moment we prohibit things they permitted—that’s how I understand it, again, this is psychology—then they’ll do the reverse too. Meaning, they’ll also permit things the Talmud prohibited. That’s what stands behind this whole matter. Someone will now say against the Talmud—one must not prohibit— I don’t think these people, perhaps in private at home, would kill a louse because of the Talmud. But to issue a ruling and say now it is forbidden to kill a louse—that is to go head-on against the Talmud. And if you go head-on against the Talmud, tomorrow morning someone will also permit things that the Talmud prohibited. There are such risks in Jewish law too.
[Speaker C] Like the story with Rabbi Elazar—no, the one with Rabban Gamliel and Rabbi Yehoshua, to come to him on Yom Kippur. Rabban Gamliel to Rabbi Yehoshua, yes.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, there it’s about sanctifying the month.
[Speaker C] But he thought the truth was with him.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That doesn’t matter. Regarding sanctifying the month in the calendar, it says, “you,” even if you err, even if you act intentionally. And the head of the high court has the authority even if he acts intentionally, even if he is deliberately mistaken.
[Speaker F] But here the world saw that he was mistaken. What? They saw two days. The whole world saw that he was mistaken. Right. Not only did they see, but at the same time they say it’s permitted to make calculations, and it’s not so important whether it’s exactly one hundred percent accurate or not. That means that even if the whole world saw that he was mistaken, you can still correct something through an error.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, okay, okay, but there I’m saying in real time they still didn’t know it. In real time they still didn’t know it. He came to him on the Yom Kippur that fell according to his own calculation. Fine.
[Speaker B] The Sefat Emet, yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, so he talks—he really writes this too. He says, admittedly, in introductions that were not published and so on, but he has some dispute with his teacher, and indeed he says that one really must prohibit. Meaning, that if this is a scientific error of the sages of the Talmud, then if we understand today that it is an error, then indeed the law has to change. Meaning—but that is really almost a lone opinion. There is one or two more sources there, but it is almost a lone opinion. So yes, there is a dispute here. The serious dispute, it seems to me at least—if I may hand out grades—the serious dispute is not the dispute on the scientific plane but the dispute on the halakhic plane. That is the question: even though I accept factually that this is not so, can I derive from that that the law also changes, or not? And that is a dispute in Jewish law. Fine, so that’s a different discussion. So why is that important for our purposes? Because then, once again, there is no Torah-and-science problem here, according to everyone. That’s what I mean to say. So there is no Torah-and-science problem here, because even one who forbids—actually, one who permits, sorry, in the case of the louse—should understand: no, there is some sort of mistake here, this is not what they thought, but halakhically it still has to remain this way. So for our discussion—the question of Torah and science and conflicts and the like—it seems to me that this dispute doesn’t matter. Maybe one more clarification regarding this matter of the sages and the Oral Torah. Take an example, a passage in Bava Batra. That’s an example I also gave in the newspaper. A passage in Bava Batra about “a person does not repay before the due date,” right? If a person claims money from someone else—he lent him money—and he claims the money from him within the term of repayment, meaning before the due date arrived, and the defendant says, “I repaid,” he is not believed. The Talmud says: why? There is a presumption that a person does not repay before the due date. The question is: what do I learn from that Talmudic passage? In the simple conception, I learn from that passage the psychological fact that a person does not tend to repay money before the due date. Does that mean such a thing can never change? It could change. Certainly, certainly different circumstances will lead people to behave differently. For example, if there is, I don’t know, interest, if there is a halakhic business partnership arrangement and so on—yes—so there is interest when you delay, then fine, presumably in such cases if a person has money, he really will repay before the due date. Right. Could there also be a change in the psychological structure of the person himself? I don’t know. Suddenly there is a generation of righteous people who repay before the due date even without interest—just because they want to repay as fast as possible. I wouldn’t rule that out either. It’s possible.
[Speaker B] Human nature—is this statement statistical or absolute? Everyone—no one repays before— No, no, no, it’s statistical. But how can you rule Jewish law based on the fact that seventy percent are like that and thirty percent aren’t? What’s the problem? But he’s the kind of person who is compulsive and doesn’t like going to sleep while owing someone money.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If he’s like that, then let him bring proof, since most people are not like that. That is the meaning of a presumption. We follow the majority. Always. If he brings proof that he really is different, then fine. That’s important. There are people who repaid before the due date. Of course, obviously. That’s how they established it. A compulsive person can exist today too, gentlemen. In any event, the question is: how am I supposed to relate to this factual determination? Is it something that can’t change? That doesn’t sound plausible. Circumstances can change it. A somewhat subtler question: can human nature itself change in this regard? Not that the circumstances bring us to a situation in which we behave differently—that’s a subtler question. On the face of it, I don’t see why not. In principle it could be. Human nature has changed a bit in some things; in other things not. Changes can happen. And therefore I also wouldn’t rule that out. If I see that it has changed, it doesn’t bother me, it doesn’t trouble me. So what does this passage say?
[Speaker B] What about the quote from Rabbi Soloveitchik in Tando?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll stop the words here, I don’t want to offend his honor. What, actually, what does this thing mean? Meaning, what did I ultimately learn from this passage? Did she learn from this passage a statement about human nature? Is that what I learned? Because if so, that’s a bit problematic, because that’s a statement that is subject to change, at least according to my assumption, subject to change. So now let’s say I’m in a situation where the state of affairs, the situation, is already different, meaning human behavior is different, whether for external reasons or internal reasons. Is there any point in learning this passage? Is that Torah study, or has it turned into aggadic literature?
[Speaker C] If it’s aggadic literature then maybe it’s Torah study, but it’s become something that you’re not really supposed to learn. I’m praying for responses, the example of… because here the basic assumption is that a person contributes his time, and that’s because he has no interest at all. Meaning, it’s a matter of… no, fine, but it’s not… let’s say there’s no interest in it at all, because that’s the assumption of the Talmud, there’s no interest, no nothing. At the beginning of the discussion—and we went through this and you explained it a bit—that logic is stronger than everything. Stronger than a lot of things; let’s say it’s something I want to look at as something hard to move. So I’m saying, my logic tells me that human nature, by its nature, is not to do something against one’s own interest. And that’s something… wait, and that’s something almost built into the genetics. It’s even an interest that we created… and from there I take it. No, and for what you’re saying, but I…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That was the reason I said that the second plane of change—not through circumstances—is really the one that’s harder. And still I want to tell you that there can be a situation where a person acts against his own interest. For example, he doesn’t steal.
[Speaker B] Not one,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Everybody, most people don’t steal, I hope. They act against their interest. Why? Because they want to be good people. So now there is a generation of good people who say: look, I already have the money, I borrowed from him, I don’t need the loan anymore. I borrowed, but now I already have the money—why not repay it? What’s the problem? And this can’t exist on a theoretical level? Why not? I don’t understand why I’m supposed to rule that out. But fine, that’s why I don’t need to get into the example itself. I’m saying on the principled level, I don’t see why I’m supposed to rule out the possibility of a change of that sort. We won’t get into the question of whether there really was such a change; that’s not important.
[Speaker F] The second issue is that the Sages knew a person’s ultimate frame of mind. They know the real truth, the good thing, the nature of elevated man, and it depends where you draw the line, but that’s what they claim. I understand. So I’m saying, if we… we’re not okay, so what can we do?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’m saying, that needs two answers. First, that’s true. The assumption is that when the Sages establish some evaluation of reality, they got to the bottom of the human mind. I assume that too. I’m not assuming it’s certain. You then jumped further and said that it’s definitely true. No—but it was the best assessment the Sages had. And they are wise people and they are the authorized body, so they need to determine the correct assessment, or the legally binding assessment, of human nature. That’s true. But what happens if it changes? Must that be an eternal assessment? Meaning, what they saw in the people around them—is that supposed to characterize human beings until the end of all generations? I don’t know. Who said so? Okay, I’m not sure about that.
[Speaker B] In any case, maybe we can get into this a little, what was written…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I did get into it—I just said what I think about it, without mentioning Rabbi Soloveitchik, I just said what I think about it. It can’t be right, simply… what do you mean, Torah from Sinai and it never changes? What do you mean? There are many presumptions that are a function of what the Sages observed. I don’t see why to assume that. Meaning, fine, maybe in this case it’s true, I don’t know, but where does that come from? Why should it be true? Why? I don’t see why. In any case, what I want is to move forward for a moment with this example. Without arguing about the example, because I’m not claiming it changed. I’m bringing it as an example of something where I have no problem if someone comes and says that it changed, okay? So what does this passage nevertheless tell me? Why do we nevertheless need to study this passage? And I assume we’ll agree that we do need to study it. Why do we need to study it? This passage doesn’t tell me those questions at all—not the psychological ones and not the behavioral ones. No, that’s not the discussion there at all. The discussion in that passage is the question whether a presumption overcomes the person currently in possession. That’s the discussion. And that I learn from this Talmudic passage as a normative determination. The Talmud makes a normative determination, and in the realm of norms, in the normative domain, the Talmud has authority—we saw that. And therefore the Talmud—and here too there isn’t really scientific right and wrong—it’s a binding normative determination. That’s the constitution, and the constitution is that a presumption can remove from the current holder. Now, the Sages don’t speak there about presumption in general; there it’s even formulated more generally—presumption and what stands against a presumption—they speak there, as it were, in the language of rules. But many times, or most times, the Sages speak about cases. So instead of speaking about a general presumption they say, “There is a presumption that a person does not repay before the due date.” And in fact through that they use it to tell me the principle that a presumption can remove from the current holder. But this also applies to any other presumption.
[Speaker C] It removes from the current holder in the sense that he has to pay again.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A person is a borrower; he is holding the money. You want to extract the money from him, so there is a presumption against him when he says “it was repaid,” and he is the current holder. So you have a presumption extracting; he is holding the money,
[Speaker C] but there is a promissory note against that.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so what? The due date hasn’t arrived—we’ll discuss that more. Right now I’m the current holder. Is a note considered as if already collected or not as if already collected? Jewish law says a note is not considered as if already collected. So if a presumption removes from the current holder, that is the lesson the Talmud is teaching. The lesson is not the psychological estimate about people, that they do not repay before the due date or that they do repay before the due date. On the principled level I see no reason such a thing cannot change; at least I see no obstacle to saying it can change. Let’s be even more minimal, okay? But that’s not the point of the Talmudic passage. Because if today, for example, the situation were that my estimate is that if a person has money, then he repays before the due date—specifically he repays—not only is it false that he does not repay, but it turns out that he does repay. Then someone who claims that he did not repay would not be believed. If the lender claimed he didn’t repay, as it were, he wouldn’t be believed. Okay? Because the presumption says that he did repay. So what does that mean? Does that mean I’ve deviated from the Talmud? Does it mean I disagree with the Talmud? No, because the message the Talmud is conveying here, or the thing that is actually within the Talmud’s authority to determine, is the normative thing. The normative determination. The normative determination remains. And if I broaden this, then I say more than that. In most halakhic passages, in a large portion of halakhic passages, there is some factual infrastructure on the basis of which the whole discussion operates. Various assumptions are made about human nature, about animals, about how the world operates. There is all kinds of factual infrastructure. On the basis of that factual infrastructure we establish a normative determination. We say: since a person does not repay before the due date, therefore he is not believed when he says “it was repaid.” Okay? That is the normative determination. I think I already mentioned Hume’s naturalistic fallacy, which says that you cannot derive a normative evaluative conclusion from a factual premise. This wall is white, therefore this wall is beautiful. That is an invalid argument. This wall is white—that’s a fact. This wall is beautiful—that’s an aesthetic judgment in this case, but also an ethical, aesthetic, legal, halakhic judgment, it doesn’t matter. Judgments are not created from facts alone. There always has to be some additional assumption. For example: whatever is white is beautiful. Whatever is white is beautiful. Okay? If this wall is white, and whatever is white is beautiful, the conclusion is that this wall is beautiful. That is a valid argument. Why? Because the premises underlying it are not only facts. There is the fact that this wall is white, but there is also an assumption that carries me from the factual plane to the evaluative plane: whatever is white is beautiful. Once I have an evaluative dimension within the premises, now I can infer the evaluative conclusion. And the same is true regarding Jewish law. Now the question is: what is Torah? There too it is exactly the same thing, the same structure. Factual premise: a person does not repay before the due date. Bridging premise, let’s call it here: if there is a presumption, it can remove from the current holder. Normative conclusion: a person who claims he repaid before the due date,
[Speaker B] is not believed.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay? Which of these is Torah? Not the factual premise, and not the conclusion either. What is Torah is the bridging principle: that if there is a presumption, it can remove from the current holder. What counts as a presumption, and therefore what can remove from the current holder, is something that can change. What is eternal? What is the Torah in this passage? The Torah in this passage is the bridging principle. That if the fact is such-and-such, then the norm is such-and-such. What does that mean? It means that under different circumstances, when the norm changes, reverses, something else happens, I preserve that very same Torah itself and apply it to different factual circumstances. The conclusion is a different conclusion. So both the conclusion changed and the premise changed. A different premise and a different conclusion. What is preserved? What is preserved is the “if… then,” right? What is preserved is the bridging principle. The bridging principle—that is Torah.
[Speaker B] A factual premise—give an example of a factual premise that changed. The bridging principle is also a premise.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, this example—that a person does not repay before the due date, for instance. But what has to be preserved because of the Talmud’s authority is that if there is a presumption, it can remove from the current holder. Where is there a presumption? When is it a presumption and when not? That can be a function of place and time. It may even be that perhaps the Sages also made a mistake in that matter. Theoretically that’s possible—it’s not interesting. Because the assumption is that the sages of that generation are the ones entrusted with the determination, with the evaluation of reality in that generation. So it’s a theoretical question whether they could have erred there or not. But it’s not important. But if reality at least changed, or if this time it just wasn’t like that, that doesn’t mean we are going against the Talmud. Because we continue with the Talmud’s normative determination, that a presumption removes money from the current holder. What a presumption is—that is not the Talmud. The Talmud does not deal with facts.
[Speaker B] But the Talmud also has this issue of what is called a presumption, no?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] True enough. A presumption in certain cases—I don’t think that’s where the presumption itself disappears. So it depends; with the rabbinic oath perhaps they discuss there what happened, and in the Talmudic oath too, yes, if someone denies the whole claim is liable. “A person does not brazenly deny his creditor”—that was the assumption, and then suddenly it changed and now a person does brazenly deny his creditor. Here, by the way, is an example of a change in human nature, and medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) say this. I’m not sure that’s the plain meaning, by the way, in Rav Nachman there regarding the rabbinic oath. There is Beit HaLevi—there is a long responsum of Beit HaLevi—it’s not clear that this is really the result of changing circumstances, and there are also hints that already in the period of the Mishnah there was a rabbinic oath. But on the principled level, medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim) raise such a thing, and it doesn’t seem to bother them too much. Fine, so once people were less brazen and today more brazen. In Gilad Nafshi they murder. So what? Sometimes human nature changes. So therefore the point—what I want to take from this example—is the question: when I want to be committed to Torah—and I’m speaking now about the Oral Torah, about the Sages, or also medieval authorities (Rishonim) and later authorities (Acharonim)—to what exactly in their words am I supposed to be committed? I think that the whole factual dimension in their words is not Torah. It is not Torah. It is an assessment of the reality within which they lived and acted. From that they derived, on the basis of principles they established, the normative conclusions. So the factual premise is not Torah, and therefore I see no problem at all with its changing, or even with it not being true—not only that it changed. And as a result, the conclusion is not either. Let’s return to the louse. You said again, it’s a Torah law, not important, but it’s a Torah law based on the Sages’ assessment of reality. So the fact that the Sages say a louse is not generated like a regular living creature—that is a scientific fact. The Torah in that passage is not the fact. The Torah in that passage is that if there is such a creature, there is no prohibition on killing it on the Sabbath. On that I do not disagree; I cannot disagree. That is what the Talmud says. But when I say that the louse is not such a creature, that the louse is something else—have I said something against the Sages? No. I said something against the Sages’ perception of reality, not against their halakhic determinations. But in perceptions of reality, they have no authority.
[Speaker E] But according to what you’re saying,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] and I think
[Speaker E] that it’s true, I don’t even need any religious court or anything in order to change it.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I said—that’s the debate I mentioned earlier. If you ask me personally, I think you’re right. But I said, it seems to me that most halakhic decisors don’t think so. Fine, it’s a halakhic dispute.
[Speaker C] But on the principled level, if I were in the position of the head of the Sanhedrin, I could very much understand you, but we are a public. How does this come to expression? Who in the community is even supposed, in order not to create chaos of individualized Jewish law, to determine the norms of what changed and what didn’t change? In the end, you and I will think different things even in factual matters.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, that’s a hard question, but that question is true in many other contexts, not only in the question of changes in reality. We act differently regarding many laws. And the question is whether we have some ideal picture in our heads, whether our utopia is that everyone behaves the same way. I’m not sure that is my utopia.
[Speaker C] Not the same way, not the same way. Okay, so what? But for example, I tend to tell myself that even if I don’t understand everything because I’m much less wise than whoever writes Jewish law, I haven’t yet investigated, I attach myself to some line—which I choose, by the way; there’s something in the choice too—but once I’ve chosen it, I follow it and it charts a path for me. Ovadia Yosef, everyone chooses his own. But in the way you’re teaching me right now,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, you’re
[Speaker C] you’re kind of challenging me to check every time whether the factual basis…
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I didn’t get into the question of who is authorized to determine that the factual basis has changed. I remarked something about it—that one can argue whether a quorum is needed here, meaning whether the Great Court needs to do it. I very much doubt it; personally I don’t think so. Many halakhic decisors perhaps think yes. Does that mean everyone can? That’s another question; I don’t know, maybe not. I didn’t speak about that. That is another question. I’m talking now about the contemporary halakhic decisor, okay? Not about the layman. That’s something else; that’s already another discussion, and I’m not entering it now. But just generally, regarding what you said a moment ago, there is this feeling that once there are disputes, then Torah becomes like two Torahs and it falls apart and it’s terribly problematic. I don’t know—my utopia, I’m not troubled by the fact that people act in different ways. As long as it is done within the framework of halakhic considerations, and there is a halakhic dispute between two people, then he will kill lice and he won’t kill lice—nothing will happen. I don’t see that as a great disaster. Fine, but that’s another discussion. Okay, so that’s with respect to the Oral Torah throughout the generations, meaning the Talmud, medieval authorities (Rishonim), later authorities (Acharonim), and so on. Once this whole business drops off our map, that leaves us with the last two types, remember? I left three types, or I defined three types of problems. One type is problems that come up against the Written Torah, yes? Apparent errors or apparently incorrect things in the Written Torah. There, as I already mentioned, the situation is much more problematic on its face, because I don’t think you can say that the Holy One, blessed be He, made a mistake on the factual plane, and therefore fine, there is no obstacle to saying that the factual plane in the Torah is not correct. That is very problematic. And then notice that Maimonides is not frightened by a situation in which our tradition, or the Torah, the plain meaning of the Torah, stands in contradiction to scientific or philosophical conceptions that we think are true. That does not mean—even in the Written Torah—that automatically we have to throw out what we think. Okay? Especially, I think—we discussed this—I think Maimonides’ view in that period at least was a view that, yes, throughout all generations in general, they took scientific knowledge, it seems to me, as more binding than we relate to it today. But still, you see in Maimonides the principled possibility that when there is a contradiction of that kind, then we need to do creative interpretation of the Torah and resolve the contradiction. Meaning that there too, really, there is another whole basket of problems. I’m not dealing with the specific problems right now; I’m talking about them in groups. So this problem of clashes with the Written Torah is a problem that overall, again, does require somewhat more specific discussion, because creative interpretation also has to hold water. And I think I talked about that too. Meaning, there is this feeling that you can do whatever you want as long as you hang some verse on it, and in the end we’ll come out okay. It doesn’t work like that, because creative interpretation—today that sounds like a polite term for doing whatever you want. I do not mean that. I mean that I can really convince myself or you that the interpretation I’m proposing is what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended in the verse. Now, I can’t always do that, and therefore sometimes there is a contradiction where this Maimonidean technique maybe won’t help me. Here you have to go contradiction by contradiction and see. The fact that I can decide that Amalek means the Amalek in the heart and finish off that whole problem, or even quote some Hasidic rebbe who says something like that—that’s not serious, because it doesn’t seem that that is what the Torah intends. And therefore that may be a very creative interpretation, but it doesn’t sound reliable to me. So if, say, I were in some conflict about that, then the fact that there is such a thing as creative interpretation does not exempt me from it. Okay? And therefore, therefore, it’s true that there is some sweeping technique here that somehow looks as though it automatically solves all the problems, but that’s not accurate. It’s not accurate, because in the end I’m striving to do what the Torah says, what the Holy One, blessed be He, intended. And if after my creative interpretation it is clear both to me and to the listeners that this is not what the Torah means, then I’m just making a mockery of the process. Then I’m just hiding the fact that I’m actually not doing what the Torah says. Okay? Therefore the fact that people use creative interpretation is a very important tool, but one has to be careful in how one uses it. The third subject is really the one that is seemingly the closest, and that is the subject of foundations—foundations of faith, you could call it. Faith in the Holy One, blessed be He. This is not the Written Torah; this is not the Oral Torah. It is the foundation with which we come to both Torahs. Faith in the Holy One, blessed be He, the revelation at Mount Sinai. The revelation at Mount Sinai is indeed verses in the Torah, but of course it has a status beyond the fact that it appears as verses in the Torah. Meaning, if I have a contradiction with the revelation at Mount Sinai and I do creative interpretation of the Torah and say there was no revelation at Mount Sinai, okay? It’s just aggadic literature; really they felt some kind of exaltation that came from above and that’s how they received the Torah—and I worked everything out with the verses—but I threw out the baby with the bathwater. Meaning, what do you mean, I worked out the verses? Without the revelation at Mount Sinai, where is the obligation? Meaning, there is something here that is not exhausted by the fact that I have verses describing the revelation at Mount Sinai. With verses, you can manage through creative interpretation. I’d even say more than that: here I’m speaking about direct creative interpretation. Meaning, even if I came to the interpretive conclusion that one can interpret the verses that way, then I have indeed solved the interpretive problem in the terms I spoke about before. But where am I standing afterward? What is left? I have a friend, Rabbi Amit Kula, he is the rabbi of Kibbutz Alumim. A very interesting person. And he published a book called Was It or Was It Not. And the purpose of the book is a kind of project—he was head of Yeshivat HaKibbutz HaDati, and he gave a series of lectures there; I assume it arose from feelings generated by the encounter with the students, so that… In it he tried to empty all the factual dimension out of the tradition. To the point that he tried to show that you can give up the entire factual foundation—from Abraham our father through the revelation at Mount Sinai, creation of the world, whatever you want, entering the Land, the Exodus from Egypt, everything—nothing, it’s all metaphors, all stories, parables, mythologies, whatever you want. He keeps saying, I don’t think that’s the case, but let’s do a thought experiment and assume all this is true—can we still remain committed to Torah and commandments? He argued yes. Meaning, he argued that this commitment does not depend at all on the factual foundation. Now, I agree with him partially. Meaning, on particulars, perhaps even important ones, in the Torah—it may be possible to explain it that way. Maimonides spoke about the angels as being in a dream of the night, or things like that. You can do such things. I don’t think that’s terrible. The Sages did worse things with various verses, even with halakhic verses. But where you touch foundations—what do you mean, without the revelation at Mount Sinai? Suppose there was no revelation at Mount Sinai, so what? It may be that you are right that there was no revelation at Mount Sinai—so who am I? What am I doing here? I agree with this in the interpretive sense—meaning, interpretively it may be a possible reading of the verses. But here we are speaking about foundations whose force or status is not because there are such verses. It is because with that I come to the verses. Meaning, if that does not exist, then what are we even talking about? This week’s Torah portion is literally the revelation at Mount Sinai, right? So here I told him: listen, up to here. Meaning, I don’t think I am willing to accept such a thing. I am willing to accept the emptying out of a great many factual foundations, a great many, a great many things that we were somehow educated to think happened that way, yes—and from aggadic teachings of the Sages certainly, by now I think we could already have heard this and gotten used to it—even explicit verses in the Torah, it could also be that they are not a historical description of what happened. But there are basic things that if we give them up, nothing remains. And therefore it seems to me that here one has to be somewhat careful not to throw out the baby with the bathwater. These techniques are very seductive techniques, meaning seductive in many senses, like magic. You can solve all the problems at once. But it seems to me that one has to be careful with this, and therefore I think that at least in these foundational areas, these really are problems that Torah and science need to address. But it seems to me that there too, when you look at it a bit more carefully, you discover that the problems are not as hard as they appear. And those need to be solved; those are the only problems that really need to be solved—as distinct from the previous two types. But I think they can be solved. And here again I can bring one or two examples just to make it more concrete; there aren’t really so many foundations of faith for… there aren’t really more than one or two examples in these areas, I mean. One example, as I said earlier, is faith in God in general. Someone who turns faith in God into something metaphorical will of course succeed in interpreting the whole Torah and everything will be fine, and he’ll just be left without everything that that means. Okay? Therefore here it really does require grappling. But here there really is some claim by various philosophers—and today also scientists, over the last hundred years also scientists—who want to argue that we can bring arguments against the existence of God, or arguments that knock down the arguments in favor of the existence of God. And then ostensibly some kind of clash is created here.
[Speaker B] But it’s not just God in general; it’s the God of Israel.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, fine, you’re already getting ahead of things; one step at a time. So regarding God in general, I’ll do this very telegraphically. Let’s say, yes, Dawkins’ arguments with evolution and the Big Bang and all kinds of things of that sort, which try somehow to propose an alternative to seeing the Holy One, blessed be He, as standing at the foundation of everything. When you look at this, yes, it is considered perhaps the classic problem of the last hundred years—the theological problem or the central Torah-and-science issue of the last hundred years, among Christians too, of course. Nothing is unique to us; almost nothing in these foundational areas is unique to us. Now here there is a kind of discourse that very much obscures the picture in both directions. I think both sides are mistaken in it, and it’s important to clarify it a bit. Let’s say we talk about evolution, since Dawkins is the high priest of these people. So what is he really saying? In the end, what did evolution innovate in the field of theological discussion?
[Speaker C] Very little, very little.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Because the only place where evolution ostensibly enters—and in a moment I’ll argue that even there it doesn’t enter—but the only place where evolution ostensibly enters is one of the proofs for the existence of God. Here divide the proofs for the existence of God into three types: the ontological proof—that is a conceptual, a priori proof, some kind of trick of word analysis that leads to the conclusion that God exists, never mind that now. The second proof is the cosmological proof: if something exists, apparently there is something else that created it, or someone else who created it, and therefore there is God. And the third proof is the physico-theological proof. Theological—that is a proof based on the complexity of reality, yes, on the fact that it looks planned, coordinated. It has different versions; it appears as an ancient proof and has received many formulations. The argument from design, the argument from complexity, the argument from fine-tuning, and things like that. Now, and of course beyond these three proofs one can speak about other directions. For example, someone might say: the argument from morality. Even Kant, after Critique of Pure Reason, wrote three books about morality, and there too he basically speaks about God as a necessary condition for morality. So one can bring a fourth type of proof; it’s not a proof in exactly the same sense, but it’s also a fourth type of proof: the argument from morality. If there is no God, there is no morality—but not in the sense people usually understand, that when people don’t believe in God they are not moral. I think today that is certainly not true. Rather, in a place where there is no faith in God, there cannot be a coherent moral theory. That people behave correctly and well and beautifully—that is certain, factually that is certainly true. Atheists too can be good people. But the moral theory by which they act—I don’t understand how they formulate it and how they feel bound by it. So that is the argument from morality. And maybe someone else will say: the argument from tradition. I don’t know, the revelation at Mount Sinai, the Kuzari, and things like that. And someone may come and say: I don’t need any of the proofs; it just seems obvious to me that there is a God. Why do I need proofs? Do I have proof that there’s a Holy Ark here? I see it. Why do I need a proof? Therefore, it is known that Moore, when he dealt with idealism—yes, those who say that maybe what we see doesn’t really exist, maybe the world doesn’t exist, it’s all in our imagination—said: here, you see, I have two hands, which means two hands exist. What did he mean to say? He meant to say that there are things about which we simply do not ask, right? I don’t have proof that the hands exist; they exist, I see them. What are you talking about? We do not really doubt this. Someone can come and say, and with a fair measure of justice: listen, the world radiates divinity. I think there is a God; I don’t need proofs for this; it is clear to me that this is so. That too is a possible approach, right? Even in my opinion, actually quite a reasonable one. But that too is an option. So let’s say now I’ve counted six possibilities. There are surely a few more. Six possibilities for how a person can arrive at faith in God. I’m taking off the table here God in the subjective sense, and the experience of God, and my God and his God. That’s all atheism; it changes nothing. I’m speaking about God in the sense of a being that exists out there, gave the Torah, and obligates us in what He said. That is what I call God. Not one experience or another and not psychotic hallucinations. So now, what does evolution do? The only thing it purports to do—and even that it doesn’t do—is to knock down the third proof out of the six. Okay, that’s it. So what? Is that a Torah-and-science problem? Let’s say you’re right.
[Speaker C] What is the third proof at the moment?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Physico-theological. The argument from complexity or from design. Because what is that argument built like? If the world is complex, a complex thing does not arise by chance—let’s put it simply—a complex thing does not arise by chance, so therefore there is a composer, meaning there is someone who created it. So evolution says: you have some assumption that a complex thing cannot come into being without the involvement of a directing hand, yes, of intelligent involvement. But that’s not true. Here, I’m showing you a mechanism that, without the involvement of a directing hand, succeeds in producing complex reality. So the assumption underlying the physico-theological proof has fallen, right? Now let’s say they’re right. They’re not. But let’s say they’re right. So what does that mean? That proof number three can be deleted. Big deal. Is that a Torah-and-science problem? What’s the problem with that? I really don’t understand all the emotions surrounding this theological discussion about evolution. Now I’ll add, and I’ll explain why I think it doesn’t even do that. And even the third proof remains in place. Not only does it remain in place, it actually becomes stronger.
[Speaker F] Now Rabbi Kook at the time thought that this was riding the wave and all that, yes,
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But with Rabbi Kook that’s fine, that’s something else; people always bring him up. I’m not sure that’s really… he doesn’t really deal there with this question. He deals with the idea that the fact that the world develops is actually a positive idea, an idea that fits our tradition. I’ll speak on a somewhat abstract level: does this contradict the existence of God? I don’t think Rabbi Kook deals directly, at least, with that question; that’s not the… In any case, why do I think it doesn’t even knock down the third proof? Because that proof basically says this: if there is a complex thing, then it was not created—or it is unlikely that it was created—without the involvement of a directing hand. If things… right? The second law of thermodynamics. Entropy doesn’t decrease, entropy doesn’t decrease. Meaning entropy doesn’t… The evolutionary claim basically says: here, we have a mechanism without the involvement of a directing hand that does decrease entropy, that does create creatures with more information, with more complex creatures, even though nobody is there managing the business and it happens on its own. How does this happen? So there is random formation of mutations, all sorts of protein chains that are created in various creatures and undergo various distortions that produce—create from them other protein chains, yes, that’s the genotype. This genotype has a phenotype, meaning a living creature that realizes those genetic traits. Then these phenotypes struggle against the environment and against each other; that’s what’s called natural selection. Among them, the more successful or stronger ones survive, in some very broad and rather empty sense, and the result is passed on genetically to future generations. These three components are required for there to be evolution: there has to be random formation of mutations, there has to be natural selection, and there has to be genetics. Okay? Because houses, for example—we might build magnificent houses on the seashore, and then a tsunami comes and washes them all away. Fine? The houses were the most beautiful in the world, therefore the strongest, the most successful in the world, therefore the best remained, right? The others fell. Is this evolution? There is natural selection here. It is not evolution. Why isn’t it evolution? Because houses do not pass traits on to offspring. So what does that mean? That when those houses break apart, we start again from scratch; we build houses again; there will be better ones and worse ones, and it helped nothing. Natural selection without genetics does nothing. Therefore you need all three components: you need the successful candidate to arise, you need it to survive in the struggle of natural selection, and you need it to pass on to future generations. Okay? That is basically—and then it repeats itself. And this is one link, and then another link like that, and that’s basically how more complex creatures are formed and, ostensibly, this is without a directing hand. Now here I have several comments. The first comment is that there is nothing random in this process at all, except that biologists usually don’t know this. Physicists know it, not biologists. And the reason is that true randomness in the world, at least as far as currently known—I’m not saying I can’t be wrong, but this is the state of the art in physics—is that true randomness exists only on the microscopic plane. Only on scales significantly smaller than a micron; at a micron maybe you can see a little and that’s it. Now, protein chains or living creatures are scales in which no randomness appears, except in truly pathological cases—superconductors, superfluids, meaning there are very, very specific cases in which the quantum character of the small scale appears on the large scale, yes? But it almost never happens; that coherence disappears as the scale increases. Why, when dealing with problems of evolution as with many other problems, do people use statistics? That’s what misleads people. People think that if statistics are used, that means the process is random. But that isn’t true; it only means it is complex. When we throw a die, we use statistics, because what is the probability of getting a three and then a four? I don’t know, for example. We count the possibilities, do the statistics, and determine the probability. Is there anything random in throwing a die? Nothing whatsoever. It is a problem in mechanics. Give me the initial conditions, give me the structure of the die, the density of the air, the wind, the temperature, the initial velocity, and I’ll tell you what face the die will land on. Meaning there is no… these are simple Newtonian laws. Right? This is mechanics. Not simple—it’s a very complicated problem. That is exactly why we use statistics. We use statistics not because the problem is random; there is nothing random there. We use statistics because the problem is complicated; there is a very delicate dependence on initial conditions, if you like. Okay? But the use of statistics does not testify to the fact that we are dealing here with a process that is random in its essence. Many of the processes around us are treated with statistical tools even though they are not random, because they are complex.
[Speaker C] Why does disqualifying randomness in the theory of evolution disqualify the matter of producing mutations?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll get to that now. So the claim—what this actually means,
[Speaker C] that every
[Speaker B] mechanical
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] This statistics here, the non-quantum kind—what is statistical mechanics really? So what’s the actual meaning of this whole thing? In this domain of natural selection, the fact that suddenly a lion came and preyed on the lamb that didn’t manage to escape, right? “And the cat came and ate the kid,” right? So this poor little kid that the cat ate didn’t manage to run away. To escape. And the one that remains is the kid that runs fast. Right? So in the process of natural selection, a kind of selection is actually taking place, and the kid that runs fast is the one that remains, and then its offspring will already be the kind that run faster. What caused it that specifically here a lion appeared, and specifically this kid is weak, and it arrived at exactly that place, and so on? So on the level of evolution they relate to this as something random; there’s some random process here, and we see that somehow in the end it leads to this result one way or another—at some point a lion will show up. But this lion, if you go into the processes it went through, and the kid too, and do an orderly calculation, you’ll see there’s nothing random there at all. It went there because it was hungry, and there it was blocked, so that’s why it ran over there. Or if you want, on a smaller level, at finer resolutions, then in its physiology—it doesn’t matter. Anywhere that the scale is still not a quantum scale, the processes on those scales are completely deterministic processes. We can describe them. The only thing is—why do we use the laws of chemistry? It’s all just complicated physics. Why do we need the laws of chemistry? Because it’s complicated, that’s all. In other words, there are situations where if I want to calculate the state of every electron inside a liquid—every electron inside the liquid, what its velocity is and where it moves and this and that—and from that derive the state of the liquid, I’ll never get anywhere in my life. Not even in a liquid that has ten thousand electrons; you don’t need liquids with astronomical, imaginary numbers, right. So what do I do? I make phenomenological laws. So I work with the laws of chemistry. Chemistry is basically just a summary of the laws of physics—a lot of laws of physics. Evolution, evolutionary randomness, is a summary of a great many deterministic laws. It is altogether a completely directed process. Now look what happens here. Basically, our world according to the scientific conception begins at a point called the Big Bang, a singular point, and what is called the explosion begins. Fourteen and I don’t know how many billion years have passed, and we arrive at—this is how we got to where we are. Not by the stork; by the Bang we got to where we are, and here we are sitting after fourteen billion years. Now I have a completely orderly description of, say for the sake of discussion, the path from the explosion to us. Does that mean there is no God, or does it mean there is a God? An orderly description—I understand everything. Evolution finished the research, everything is known. Okay? Physics also finished the research, abiogenesis—we skipped over all the problematic points that the Christian creationists are always arguing about: here you still haven’t explained this, and this you still don’t know, and that one too you don’t know, so that proves there is a God. So what? I’ve finished everything now, I know everything. So now for sure there is a God. The fact that we understand this process only improves the proof; it doesn’t weaken it. And notice what’s happening here. There is a process here that begins from one singular point of matter, reaches everything we see around us, and is managed deterministically by four laws of physics. The whole business is governed by four laws of physics. Any of you—I’m giving you a project—any of you, take laws, make up whatever laws you want, set four laws that after fourteen billion years from a singular point will get to this, with chemistry and biology and whatever you want—you will never succeed. So what does that mean? It means that in fact the laws created life. The fact that we use statistical processes and so on because it’s complicated—obviously. That’s exactly the problem. That’s also why we won’t be able to produce such laws, because it’s a terribly complicated process. We don’t know how to go backward, certainly not forward, and think in advance: I want to get to life, so I’ll produce laws that will bring me to life. Today life already exists; we’re trying to distill from it the laws that brought us to where we are. That’s an easier project, and even that we don’t really fully succeed at. Okay, it’s impossible. Now I ask: all in all, what will this description give me after it’s finished and I understand everything? This description will give me the ways in which the Holy One, blessed be He, created us. That’s all. It’s like explaining to me that there is a factory that operates very successfully. You say: okay, there must be some talented manager there who tells everyone what to do. What are you talking about? Look here on the board—there’s a list of ten rules. The clerks have to do this, and marketing does that, and the advertisers this, and the manufacturers and engineers—what each one does with everyone else—and there are subclauses with papers telling everyone what to do. You say: ah, clear, you don’t need a manager here, there’s a list of rules. What’s the obvious question that follows? Who wrote the list of rules? Right? In other words, who wrote all these beautiful rules that cause the factory to run this way? And therefore this whole bizarre discussion around evolution—even if it were correct and it knocked down the physico-theological proof, then now we have n minus 1 ways to the Holy One, blessed be He, not n. Okay, big deal. Now that’s not true. The third way—what I called earlier the physico-theological proof—only grows stronger because of evolution. I now see the opposite. Dawkins keeps saying it didn’t happen all at once, which really is just an upside-down world, from what I’ve seen. Because if it had happened all at once, fine—all at once all kinds of things can happen, something random, so by chance this thing came out. Do I know how it came out? It came out. But if you have something—a planned process, with rigid laws, that begins at a singular point, fourteen billion years forward, and it gets here—that proves the existence of God a thousand times more, even than this power outage, “Let there be light.” It proves the existence of God a thousand times more than something that created itself, suddenly out of nothing, a world full of life. It shows planning, it shows some kind of direction. Now, there are lots of questions along the way: so why do you need the dust, all that stuff that went extinct along the way? What, the Holy One, blessed be He, can’t create directly what He wants? Wonderful question, I don’t have a good answer. So what? The proof still stands. It’s like the watch of… the old version of this proof is Paley’s watch—sorry for the… Paley’s watch, yes, the American priest, who said: you see a rock here, you ask where it came from? They say: it was always here. You see a watch down here—how did it get here? It was always here. You don’t accept the answer that it was always here, right? Surely there was some watchmaker or someone, and in the end somehow it got here, right?
[Speaker B] The accepted design, the Big Bang—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] the big one just caused me a glitch. I don’t remember the point I wanted to make; it slipped my mind.
[Speaker F] The question is, does it convince you? There are things that convince other people. There are those who want to believe, and there are things like you said, the third thing in addition—so that convinced others in a completely persuasive way. I’m saying that’s a mistake.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s what I’m saying. It can’t convince them. They can say to me: I’m an atheist. That’s his right. He can’t tell me that because of evolution I’m an atheist.
[Speaker F] It just doesn’t answer what I’m saying. Because there are different kinds of people, different things convince them this way or that way.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Fine, so—
[Speaker F] there are people who are convinced of exactly the opposite of what you’re convinced of, and there are people here in this audience who were convinced here, and also in the opposite direction.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t understand the question.
[Speaker F] Meaning, this is the logic, a certain level of—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not a certain level. This is the logic. Whoever disagrees is welcome to; I don’t know any other logic.
[Speaker F] Except that you argued that they were convinced otherwise. And there are many mistakes—what can you do?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And they say that you’re mistaken.
[Speaker F] They say it—so what?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Someone thinks he’s Napoleon. Everybody tells him: you’re crazy, and he says: you’re crazy.
[Speaker F] So what? There are lots of people who think—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So what if there are lots? There are lots of people who are mistaken—what can you do? What do you want me to say? I have an argument; I think it’s correct.
[Speaker F] It didn’t convince you otherwise?
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No. Show me where it’s not correct. Don’t tell me there are others who think differently. If you can point out what in this argument is incorrect, I understand—let’s discuss it. You can’t tell me: look, he thinks otherwise. So he thinks so, fine, what can you do? There’s also the other side, that you’re mistaken.
[Speaker F] When they tell me I’m mistaken, I’ll at least try to explain—
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] where I think they’re mistaken. I won’t tell them: look, I think differently. I know I think differently, fine, but let’s see what they’re saying. I don’t know an argument that they make.
[Speaker F] So therefore I don’t know, it doesn’t help.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m not saying you’re not right; I’m saying there are people who… fine, and I agree that there are people who think I’m not right. I’m only saying that they’re mistaken. What am I supposed to do with that? If they raise an argument and explain why I’m not right in my argument, then I understand. Today the argument is: I think differently. Fine, so I have a good argument and you think differently—what am I supposed to do with that? If you can point out what in the chain of argument here is not in order, that could be a claim. Otherwise I don’t understand what we’re talking about. Just one last sentence—I really have to finish because the—
[Speaker B] It needs to be democratic.
[Rabbi Michael Abraham] What democratic? Democracy in reality? I don’t decide things democratically. Someone who decides democratically whether the Higgs boson exists won’t get very far. Ninety-nine percent of the population don’t know what the Higgs boson is, so what are they going to decide? So this stormy discourse between creationists and neo-Darwinians assumes that you have to choose: either evolution or God. So these choose this and throw out that, and those choose that and throw out this, while their whole common side, their point of agreement, is the problematic point—that you really do have to choose. In other words, that the two really can’t go together. So this is an example of an underlying problem in which both the attackers and the defenders are mistaken. It’s simply based on an error, and that seems to me to be one of the central problems regarding foundational questions. Okay, I’ll stop here.