Debate on Faith – Yaron Yadan and Rabbi Dr. Michael Abraham – Full

[Speaker A] Women are light-minded. That’s what the Sages determined, or at least that’s how it’s said. And Rabbi Yose ben Yochanan reinforced it by claiming that the sages said—probably his teachers or rabbis—that anyone who talks excessively with a woman brings evil upon himself, neglects Torah study, and in the end inherits Gehinnom. That appears in Pirkei Avot, chapter 1, mishnah 5. That same attitude of a certain contempt toward women also found expression among the later halakhic decisors, the more recent ones. For example, Maimonides said something like this, something that really, really doesn’t fit Maimonides to say, at least based on what people usually think of him—everybody thinks he’s truly the greatest. This is what he said: whatever a man wants to do with his wife, he may do. He may have intercourse whenever he wishes, and kiss any limb he wishes. He may have relations with her in the usual way or not in the usual way. Now unfortunately, that attitude is also reflected, at least in some of the movements and rabbis who are public opinion leaders in Israel today, and we can see it in one of the lectures of Israel’s Chief Rabbi, Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, who said: women are subjugated to their husbands—to cook for them, to wash for them. That’s it. There are many elements in the Talmud that you could say are not exactly respectful toward women, but there are also positive things. There are also positive sides that we can see. For example, Rabbi Akiva, the greatest of the Tannaim—everyone knows him, everyone grew up on him, at least the religious public—said about women: by the merit of righteous women, Israel went out of Egypt, and by their merit they are destined to be redeemed. In tractate Berakhot 17a it says: the Holy One, blessed be He, gave a woman greater understanding than a man. And to cleanse the name of Maimonides—who again is one of the later decisors, he wasn’t in the Talmud but of course was certainly influenced by it—he wrote: and so the sages commanded that a man should honor his wife more than himself and love her as himself. And if he has means, he should increase her welfare according to his means, and he should not impose excessive fear on her, and he should speak to her gently and not be sad or angry. So, like we just saw, there are two sides to the Talmud. There is a positive side toward women and a negative side toward women. But the Talmud is not really what matters most, in terms of whether I’m a religious or non-religious person, because if the Talmud is false or true, so to speak, or reliable or not reliable, that doesn’t really matter all that much. What really matters—of course we’ll discuss the Talmud in this discussion—but what matters more is not the Talmud, it’s the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)—the Jewish view says that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) was either written with divine inspiration, or that God actually wrote the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). At the very least, the words of God are presented in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), okay? The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) represents some kind of truth in one way or another, some kind of holiness in one way or another. And in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) too, we see—at least in certain interpretations—different moral sides. I just gave you the side relating to women, okay? Sometimes there are not-so-worthy sides toward women in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). True, women were prophetesses and queens, and there really were very great women in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)—Ruth and Esther, literally two entire scrolls written about women in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and what remarkable women Esther and Ruth were. But of course there are also all sorts of not-so-pretty sides. For example, in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), in the Torah, in the book of Numbers I think, Zimri the prince decided to sleep with some Midianite woman, and in the book of Numbers Pinchas, the religious zealot, went crazy and instead of turning to Moses, who was the law and justice and order of that time, he decided to take some sword or spear and stab them both and kill them. We also have, for example, the severe punishment that Moses and the Levites carried out against the Israelites in the portion of Ki Tisa, in the sin of the golden calf. They sinned, so you’d assume they’d get punished—you know, a reasonable punishment. No. Three thousand Israelites were murdered that night by the Levites and by Moses our teacher. Yaron Yadan, who is our interviewee this evening, says that the plague of the firstborn is so disproportionate that he doesn’t even know where to begin; murdering all the firstborn of Egypt is, in his view, obviously senseless. And since we’ve already touched on our interviewees, in order to discuss the holiness of the Torah, whether the Torah is the word of God, and whether the Talmud is moral, and of course also the political effects of those views, and in general to discuss atheism and theism, I’m honored to host today Yaron Yadan. Yaron Yadan is a former kollel head who became non-religious, an atheist, and the owner of the YouTube channel Da’at Emet and the Da’at Emet movement, which has set itself the goal of educating toward critical thinking and fighting religion. And on the other side we have Rabbi Michael Abraham. Rabbi Michael Abraham holds a doctorate in physics, teaches at the Institute for Torah at Bar-Ilan, he is a thinker in many fields, an incredible autodidact, and a well-known writer of books. Today they’re going to discuss exactly the things I just mentioned. And for Yaron Yadan I have the first question we’re going to discuss, and the first question is this: Yaron, I’d be glad if you’d present your view on the holiness and reliability of the Torah. How do you define that a book is holy, and more generally, how do you say that it is even reasonable to assume that a book is the word of God?

[Speaker B] Okay, so first of all I want to begin by saying that the word “holy” is a very, very dangerous and misleading word, and it basically negates critical thinking. Because the moment something is holy and we as human beings are not holy, then we always have to cancel our independent thinking, and basically cancel the image of God, as religious people call it. In any case, the biblical text is a text of words, of definitions, of concepts, of narrative, of laws. And in order to examine whether it is a book written by human beings in certain periods or not, you simply have to read it and understand the words in it. And anyone who reads the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and strips away this whole business called holiness, strips away this whole business called God, and starts examining it, testing it, seeing whether it’s divine or human—once a person makes that move, that shift in attitude, in the conception he has of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and in his relation to it, strips away all the holiness, strips away God, and starts examining it as it is, the way a physicist examines the physics of a natural mechanism, or like any scientist who studies nature from within nature, without attributing holiness or nerves or anger or desire and so on to nature—the same thing with the text of the Torah. How can a reasonable person reading this Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) think that this was written by some superhuman thing, and in religious terms, by God? Now, I keep saying to religious people: today at least, you define God not like the Sages did, because they defined God like little children, but today you define God the way Maimonides defines Him—as having no time, no place, no beginning and no end, being self-caused, and basically creating all the galaxies, all this astonishing nature—and then suddenly you come and say, oops, He wrote this book. How? It’s such a dissonance, such a gap. What’s written there? What stories? The whole book of Leviticus talks about sacrifices, that God wants sacrifices brought to Him, slaughtering sheep and cattle, the dedication of the Tabernacle. The book—listen, Eyal—the book comes and starts listing for you what sacrifice each prince brought, and there are twelve princes. Now they brought the exact same thing, and it repeats the exact same thing—eight verses—again and again and again. Tell me, are you serious? And then the contradictions and duplications. What? This is how God tells stories? But mainly, on the really important things, like the calendar—it doesn’t talk at all. Menstruation—it doesn’t talk at all. There’s no ritual bath, no obligation of immersion in a ritual bath in the Torah. Slaughter—it sounds like slaughter isn’t needed. It’s only the Sages who come and say, we received a tradition that slaughter is required, because there’s no slaughter there. On the contrary, it implies that you can hunt animals. So on these central things—like the thirty-nine categories of Sabbath labor—God is silent. But what is important to Him? Washing the laver—important. House lesions. The leper, which is only for a limited time. The work of the Tabernacle, repeated nine times. Chapters, the same thing—it’s just unbelievable. How can a normal person think for even a moment that suddenly God would ask Moses: listen, I want you to count the Israelites. And he counted them four times in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh). Four times. What’s God’s thing with counting? And then He threatens that if you count them without giving a half-shekel for each person there’ll be a plague. What is this thing? How can you—I just hold my head and say: how can a logical person relate to this confused text, with mistakes in it, that says the hyrax chews the cud when it doesn’t chew the cud, and that the Euphrates and the Tigris come from the same place, as written in Genesis. Duplications, contradictions, and mainly unimportant things. Instead of coming and opening with, man was born free. Now you’re starting to talk. Human rights? Where? Nothing, zero. What matters to Him is that Pinchas came and killed the Midianite woman, like you mentioned, Eyal, in the opening. And then God says to Pinchas: I’ll give you a gift, an eternal priesthood. What is that supposed to be? Maybe you can give some more examples?

[Speaker A] Could you maybe give some more examples of things that in your view are immoral in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)? Maybe really expand a little on the story of Pinchas and Zimri the prince?

[Speaker B] Everything is immoral, all the stories. Abraham our father—God asks Abraham our father to bind Isaac, which is a dramatic story, a foundational story. He tests Abraham, and what is the binding of Isaac really saying? Cancel your personal conscience as a father, your reason, in favor of the will of God. It’s basically the erasure of common sense and the natural conscience that a moral person has. And what does Abraham our father do? “And Abraham rose early in the morning” and took the knife to slaughter his son. How does he then send Hagar away? Sarah says to him, Hagar is no good, and God says to him, “Whatever Sarah says to you, listen to her voice.” And he sends Ishmael and Hagar into the desert. Tell me, are all these stories serious? And then there’s the sin of the golden calf, when Moses came and said that three thousand had to be killed? And only three thousand people, Moses. And then there’s the fact that he left Zipporah—after all, he left Egypt, took the Israelites out of Egypt, left Zipporah and his children with Yitro, who is the priest of Midian. The priest of Midian is an idol worshiper. He left his family and their education there, suddenly Moses doesn’t care about educating his children and leaves it to his father-in-law, who is an idol worshiper. These stories are just unbelievable. And the way God kills, keeps killing all the time, and curses, that if you do not listen to My voice you’ll have jaundice and blight and every disease I didn’t put upon Egypt I’ll put upon you. Come on, what is this? How many curses are there—you know how many curses there are? Almost two chapters of curses in Leviticus, and then He repeats it in Deuteronomy. It’s like He’s constantly dealing with curses, with sacrifices, and offering a sin-offering, and it just keeps repeating. And because it repeats and there are duplications, there are also contradictions about what kind of sacrifice you bring. And then the commentators—look how absurd this is—I call it a comic tragedy. The Torah was edited in a confused way because there were several versions and then they came and glued them all together, so there are double and triple stories, and then contradictions between the stories. Now why is it comic? Because then the commentators come—the Sages, and after them all the medieval commentators like Ibn Ezra, Rabbi Saadia Gaon and others—trying to resolve the contradictions. And so basically, because of a kind of negligence in editing a book, the Jews are constantly saying this one says this and that one says that, this one says this, and then afterward the Talmud explains the midrashim and why it contradicts, and then they ask why the Sages said this here and why they said that there. It’s full-throttle intellect in neutral. That’s the comic tragedy, in my view. It’s just unbelievable, unbelievable. And that’s what I basically show in my videos. I go portion by portion and show the absurdity. Anyone who follows my videos sees it: portion after portion I bring contradictions, duplications, and this absurdity. Here, for example: “Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” What do the medieval authorities (Rishonim) learn from that verse? That it is forbidden to think critically about faith, and a person must not dare think and doubt faith. Do you understand what kind of closed circle they created? They created some religion and called it holiness. They defined it as holy, like someone who takes a stone, chisels it, says this is God, nobody touch it and I’ll kill anyone who touches it—same thing, that’s what they did. They took a text, put it together from several people, called it holy, and said that whoever doubts has no share in the World to Come. Anyone who reads external books has no share in the World to Come. Why? Because “Do not stray after your hearts and after your eyes.” You are forbidden to raise and think thoughts that might lead you to doubt. It’s like a closed cult that isn’t allowed to leave the walls, isn’t allowed to doubt and criticize and think, think, think. That’s the basic point.

[Speaker A] Yaron, I’d just like you to address how a book can be defined as holy—that is, how can one define a book as… can one say that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is a book written as the word of God? I mean, can one say it’s reasonable that God wrote it? And in general, how do you say a book is holy or not holy?

[Speaker B] Not only is it not reasonable, it’s absurd. That’s what I’m saying—it’s absurd to think that this is in any way some kind of… leave aside the words holiness and God, that’s really too much. You know what? It’s absurd to think that a serious human being composed Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy. Even a serious person. Even, let’s say, it would never occur to me that Michael Abraham would compose a book like this. He’d compose a much more orderly book, and then the commentators wouldn’t have to say, “There is no earlier and later in the Torah.” Because in the Torah, due to the negligence of the editing, it comes out all tangled up, like they went back and forth in the journeys of the Israelites. It got to the second year after the Exodus and then suddenly went back to the first year after the Exodus and so on, and the average reader who doesn’t look closely comes out totally confused by the whole thing. So forget God and holiness. A reasonable person—as I think Michael Abraham seems to me reasonable—would write a much more orderly book, much more orderly. Meaning, forget holiness. Holiness is a word human beings use when they take objects, call them a totem and magic, and then they take this whole business and tell you a story about how they fought Amalek. Moses lifts his hands, Aaron and Hur hold up his hands, whenever his hands are up Amalek is defeated, and if they go down they lose. What is that nonsense? What are these stories, what is this magic? I don’t know, it’s unbelievable. No, I just don’t understand, don’t understand. I can explain why people believe in this absurdity—it’s like the story of The Emperor’s New Clothes, where basically the tailors came and said, listen, we’re going to sew you the finest garment for the king, but in fact they didn’t sew him any garment at all, he remained naked. But anyone who said the king was naked would be thrown in prison, and so a situation was created where everyone supposedly believed he had the most beautiful garment in the world even though he was naked. In other words, the education and brainwashing that a society goes through—not necessarily in religious matters, in any matter—creates in people a kind of paradigm and conception that causes a person not to see reality. That’s the only explanation I have for why reasonable people believe in this absurdity, as if there were some kind of wisdom or something here.

[Speaker A] Rabbi Michael Abraham, I think you have a lot to say about this. So I’d be very glad if you could also say, in your opinion at least, why you think this is a holy book—or more precisely, a book that simply represents the word of God—and how you reconcile the immoral contradictions or even the scientific contradictions in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and of course respond to everything he said.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, the truth is that a great many points really came up here, and I don’t think I’ll manage to touch on all of them, but I’ll try to explain the principles as I understand them. First of all, I want to address the concept of holiness. In my view, the attitude toward holiness is very similar to Yaron’s attitude. Meaning, I think it’s a concept with enormous influence, and its harm is greater than its benefit, because it really causes people—not justifiably, by the way, but it does cause people—to lose their critical sense. And in that sense I completely identify with Yaron’s basic direction, which says that one must never lose one’s critical sense. Even within a religious world of faith, within a world of holiness if you like—I’m not exactly sure what that concept means—you must not lose your critical sense. But the question is: to what plane do you direct that critical sense? Meaning, what is critical thinking here? So first of all, you began with the question: what makes me think that a certain book is holy, or the word of God, or whatever you want to call it—because again, the concept of holiness bothers me a bit. But the concept of holiness means that you’re not allowed to throw it in the trash. That’s all. Beyond that, nothing. The question is how I reach the conclusion that this book is the word of God and has value—meaning that I’m supposed to learn from it, obey it, or something of that sort. And here I disagree with Aaron’s starting point. In my view it doesn’t depend on the content at all. It makes no difference whatsoever what the content is; that’s not the criterion for me in relating to the book. If there’s a book that Aaron writes, or that I write—he said I can write good books, I hope he’s right—but I’ll really examine that book according to its content. Why? Because for me that book is not a source of authority. If there’s something interesting, wise, that I can learn from, I’ll learn from it. And if not, then not. So I judge it by its content. But I do not judge the Torah scroll by its content. Meaning, if someone tells me that he reached the conclusion that the Torah scroll is a divine book because of the immense wisdom hidden in it, I’ll ask him for a few examples, because so far I haven’t encountered even one. Meaning, not one example of something so wise that it would convince me that because of that wisdom it’s obvious that it has some transcendent source. I reach the conclusion that this book is holy because of its source, not because of its content. If I reach the conclusion—and that has to be debated separately, but that really is another discussion—but if I reach the conclusion that there really was divine revelation, that there is a God, that God revealed Himself, and sent us through tradition in some way some text or some message, then for me, if I reach that conclusion, such a text has status—it is the word of God. Now I’ll begin to ask myself, okay, what does it say? Are there contradictions in it, are there immoral problems in it, immoral events, things—okay, I have difficulties, we need to resolve them, clarify them, and so on. But it seems to me that everything depends on the starting point. And the Mishnah in Avot says, “Judge every person favorably.” And there is a well-known saying in the name of Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, that they asked him: yes, why did the Holy One, blessed be He, create crooked reasoning? Everything created has some purpose. So he said: in order to judge favorably. You see someone sinning or doing something like that, use your crooked reasoning to judge him favorably, to show that really he was okay. But that’s a mistake. When you look at the commentators on the Mishnah—and I think you don’t even need them for this—it’s obvious that that’s not true. To judge favorably means to make the correct and upright interpretation; that is called judging favorably. Not to follow some impulse that tells you to make someone out to be bad when there’s no real basis that he is bad. For example, you see a person who is known as Mother Teresa chasing someone down a public street with a drawn knife after—I don’t know—a young woman who’s running away from her. So there are two possibilities: either she’s coming to stab her, I don’t know, do something to her, or it could be—here I’m using my crooked reasoning—that she forgot the knife in the woman’s kitchen and is running after her in order to return it. Now I think that the straightforward interpretation, if I know this is Mother Teresa, is the second one. Even though if you don’t know who it is, someone might come and say, listen, that’s a crooked interpretation. So in fact the question of what is a straightforward interpretation and what is a crooked interpretation depends on the starting point. Meaning, if your starting point is that this text is holy, you will find solutions for most of the difficulties—not sure all of them, but most of them. And what not, not. Yes, Thomas Kuhn said this too about scientific theory: that Popper is wrong that if you find a counterexample, the theory has fallen. We don’t switch paradigms with every counterexample. Rather, if it’s serious enough, then there are some difficulties, it needs analysis. Once it crosses a certain threshold, then no. Meaning, a great deal—above all, above all—the question of determining your attitude to a book, to this kind of book, is not its content but its source. Now after I’ve said that, I now look at the content of the book, and now since I don’t accept the concept of holiness, at least not in its petrifying sense—the sense that doesn’t give you critical freedom or the legitimacy to be critical—I look at it in a completely critical way. And I look at it in a completely critical way just as the Sages did and just as the commentators did throughout history. They looked at it critically; sometimes they took it away from its plain meaning, and sometimes they gave interpretations that I assume Aaron would say are crooked and I would say are like Mother Teresa. Meaning, if you assume that this book is holy and is the word of God, then there is justification for going to interpretations that at first glance don’t look like the meaning of the text, because you understand that this is a divine text and it cannot contain injustices, nonsense, or I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort. Therefore I think the starting point determines most of the issue here. If you assume that this book is holy and is the word of God, then there is justification for going to interpretations that at first glance don’t look like the meaning of the text, because you understand that this is a divine text and it cannot contain injustices, nonsense, or I don’t know what, all kinds of things of that sort. Therefore I think the starting point determines most of the story here. So that’s in general. Now I want to go a little into examples to show how this business actually works. For example, Yaron asks why very central and important things are missing from the book, while anecdotes and esoteric, unimportant things appear in it. When you look at the examples Yaron brought, the examples are, for instance, that the mikveh doesn’t appear in it, and Sabbath labors don’t appear in it, but skin afflictions and sacrifices do. I’d bet, even without knowing Yaron—we hadn’t met before this conversation—that if the mikveh had appeared there, he would have asked: look, the mikveh appears in it, what a foolish thing that is. But when convenient, then what doesn’t appear is what’s important, and what does appear is what’s unimportant. So I’ll tell you what I think the criterion is for important and unimportant—not the circular one, that what appears is unimportant and what doesn’t appear is important—but rather the criterion is this: the question is what, in my view, if the book really is holy, then what appears in it is what is important. And now I can ask myself why that’s important. So for example—and here’s a very important point that will also matter later—I make a very sharp categorical distinction between Jewish law and morality. In my view these are two categories that do not talk to each other at all; they are transparent to one another, orthogonal in the language of physicists. And therefore I do not examine Jewish law at all in terms of whether it is moral, because it does not come to speak about moral principles. It comes to speak about halakhic / of Jewish law principles. I’ll give an example: the captive beautiful woman. The captive beautiful woman—yes, that’s the permission to take a captive woman and have intercourse with her, and in the plain sense also to rape her, not only to have intercourse with her consensually. And every so often there’s an uproar about this; even when the latest chief rabbi was appointed there was a whole uproar about what he said about it and so on. I think that when you look at it this way, then basically my claim is the following: when you look at the section, the section isn’t dealing with morality, it’s dealing with Jewish law. And as such, what this section is doing—and by the way, when you look at the medieval authorities (Rishonim), for example, who struggle over this section, and even the Sages said that this section was written “against the evil inclination”—it’s basically a permission after the fact, but they do not give this permission as a first choice. What troubled them? The moral problem did not trouble them at all. Not the fact that this is rape—that was not the question they dealt with. Rather, it was the fact that this is intercourse with a gentile woman. After all, it is forbidden to have intercourse with a gentile woman, so how can the Torah permit it? And to that they say: correct, the Torah basically permitted it only after the fact, because there was no choice. What about the rape? What about the moral problem here? How can you take a helpless woman and rape her? The answer is: you can’t. You can’t, and it’s forbidden—but it’s forbidden morally, and Jewish law does not speak about morality, it speaks about Jewish law. So what Jewish law said is that intercourse with a gentile woman does not involve a halakhic problem. If you ask me, for example, whether an IDF soldier today who did such a thing should be hanged—he should be hanged, he should be put in prison. Why? Because he committed a moral crime. But Jewish law, or this section in particular, is not dealing with morality, so that’s not the point that interests it. Now the question is: is this important or not important? Is morality important, or is the Jewish law of intercourse with a gentile woman important? For me, first of all, both are important. I said earlier that what appears in the Torah is the criterion for me of what is important. But beyond that, there are things that will not appear in the Torah because you don’t need the Torah for them. There are things I know even without the Torah. The Holy One, blessed be He, reproaches Cain for murdering Abel without “You shall not murder” or “Whoever sheds human blood, by man shall his blood be shed” having been written. Yet He still reproaches him. On what basis? There was no commandment, no Jewish law, nothing. Rather, it should have been obvious to Cain that one does not murder. Why? Because murder has a moral problem. But that is not what is written in the Torah when it says “You shall not murder.” When the Torah says “You shall not murder,” what it says is that beyond the moral problem in murder, there is also a religious problem in murder—and that is what the Torah is saying. The moral question is unrelated; the moral question every person can know with his own conscience, and in most matters there is even broad agreement, in my estimation, on what is moral and what is not moral. The Torah is not dealing with that, certainly not in the halakhic context. In the non-halakhic sections maybe it is, but in the halakhic context it is not dealing with that.

[Speaker A] So then what is Jewish law? I don’t understand—if you’re saying that we can attain things on our own, I didn’t exactly understand the argument.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] If I say that we can attain things on our own in the moral realm, because we have been endowed with moral intuition, we have a conscience, we understand what is right and what is not right—the gentiles did not receive the Torah, and still they are expected to conduct themselves morally. Why? Because you don’t need the Torah in order to behave morally. People who don’t know the Torah can also act morally, and should. Just one second, I just want to—Jewish law, Jewish law comes to tell me those things that I would not have known on my own. So Jewish law often brings me things that may seem esoteric; they are not related to morality, but that’s not accidental. I’m not even talking about anti-moral things, but about a-moral things, meaning things that aren’t related. Why? Because Jewish law comes to tell me what I don’t know on my own. Now, you ask me: tell me, having intercourse with a captive woman—does that harm ecology, or is it unhealthy? No, right? It has no connection either to ecology or to health. It’s immoral. In the same way, I relate to the question whether having intercourse with a captive woman contradicts Jewish law. The answer is no, it does not contradict Jewish law. But that does not mean it is not immoral. Jewish law is a category like health, like ecology. I can determine whether this thing is halakhically correct, halakhically forbidden, or halakhically permitted. That has no connection whatsoever to the question of whether this thing is moral or not. These are two completely different questions. And I would decide the moral question like Yaron. More or less—again, there may be disagreements between us, like between any two human beings—but on the moral question I think exactly the way Yaron thinks about it. Jewish law does not guide me there, and does not intend to guide me there. And therefore I think one has to be careful with this kind of criticism. And again, the claim is of course based on my starting point. If my starting point is that this text is the word of God and is holy, and my starting point is that this text tells me what Jewish law requires of me—just as a medical textbook tells me what health requires, and I would not expect to find moral statements there—so too in Jewish law I do not expect to find moral statements. Morality is another category, separate, and I judge it separately and independently. And having intercourse with a captive woman is plainly an anti-moral act. Whoever does that should be severely punished. These are two completely different things. And therefore here is an example of criticism that can exist even in relation to a holy text. Even from a holy text I could see that the text permits intercourse with a captive woman—but no, I activate my critical sense, yet under the assumption that this text is the word of God, and I say: it seems unlikely to me that the text permits such a thing. Apparently what it is saying is that there is no halakhic impediment to doing it, but morally it is of course immoral. And with that I completely agree. And likewise, as I said earlier regarding the question of what important things appear and what unimportant things appear: Yaron assumes in advance that he knows what is important and what is not, and he expects that what he knows to be important will appear in the book and what isn’t, won’t. But this book comes to teach you what is important. Now, you may not accept that because you don’t believe in God and in the divine origin of the Torah, but you cannot criticize the person who does believe that according to your own criteria. That’s a question-begging criticism; meaning, it’s an absurd criticism. Therefore the sending away of Ishmael, for example—the sending away of Ishmael and the binding of Isaac, the two examples Yaron brought earlier—basically, think of an elite commando unit. You put them through drills that really wear them down, because you bring them to terrible suffering, you put them through very difficult tests. Why? Not because in the end you want them to die or to kill Isaac or Ishmael, but because you want to test whether they are ready for the mission, whether they are fit for the mission. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not from the outset expect our forefather Abraham to kill Isaac, even though Abraham doesn’t know that—but as for our forefather Abraham, the Holy One, blessed be He, does not expect him to kill Isaac, and the Holy One, blessed be He, also does not expect Ishmael to die, because in the end He saves Ishmael. What He does is place very difficult and problematic missions on Abraham because He wants to see whether this really is a suitable soldier, a loyal soldier. In the end neither Ishmael dies nor Isaac dies. The test was a test for Abraham, and in the end it became clear to him that he also did not have to pay the price. Therefore I think these are also two examples that do not show something problematic. When you are looking for the foundational soldier who will build your army over generations and years, you need to test whether this is really the right temperament, the right soldier that you can rely on. And in that sense difficult tests are required. And the binding of Isaac really was a very difficult test, but in the end he was not required to kill him. So if you ask whether the Holy One, blessed be He, was immoral—the answer is certainly not. If you ask whether Abraham was immoral—since he had a divine command and from his point of view it was clear to him that this was the right thing, then although it is immoral to kill your son, there is a religious command to do so. And here I return to what I said earlier, that sometimes the religious command does not fit moral principles, but Abraham believes he is coming to achieve certain religious goals that are worth even a moral price. In the end it turned out that no, he did not need to pay the moral price. So if I sum up the bottom line, in the end all the passages—and I didn’t address some of the passages Yaron brought, but one can address all of them—I think that in the end in the same way, it all begins from the starting point. Obviously from a simple starting point, when you don’t believe in anything and you look at the book tabula rasa, then there are many things that are puzzling and immoral and so on. But it’s all a question of the starting point. And as for science, which you mentioned—also in science, like in physics, which you brought up—when you approach a book as is, the naked book, and ask it as a physicist approaches facts: I’m a physicist. Just as you do not approach facts as a physicist purely tabula rasa, so too in physics you don’t approach things purely tabula rasa. Physics is saturated with foundational assumptions that we bring with us from home, assumptions that have no observational source. I’ve written and spoken about this quite a bit. And so too in religious thought this is true. In nothing are we tabula rasa, and therefore even when you think you’re approaching as tabula rasa, you’re not—you’re approaching with your own foundational assumptions. And that’s perfectly fine; that’s your conclusion. But if I approach with my foundational assumptions, I don’t think there is even one of the questions you raised that troubles me.

[Speaker B] All right, I have three things to respond, and I don’t know whether to do it as questions to Michael and have him answer one by one, because that would make it more orderly. I’ll say the three things and afterward I’ll discuss them with him one by one. First of all, Michael invented a nice idea, but it’s not the religious idea; it contradicts the common religious view, let’s call it that. He invented that there’s a difference between Jewish law and morality. That goes against Maimonides and against the Chazon Ish, who said that Jewish law determines the doctrine of the permitted and forbidden in the realm of morality. So to come and say there’s a distinction between Jewish law and morality sounds to me—honestly, it sounds strange and incorrect. Okay, but okay, since I’m discussing this with Michael Abraham, I’ll discuss it according to his method, let’s call it that. When I discuss it with Michael Abraham, I’m now discussing it according to his own method, because this distinction between Jewish law and morality is a mistaken one, invented—maybe like Professor Leibowitz also invented some kind of thought that we are only servants of God and not… Same thing here, Michael Abraham also invented something, but it is not the common religion and it goes against the common religion. But let’s go with his approach, that there is Jewish law, and Jewish law, and everything religion dealt with dealt only with Jewish law, and from what I understood from his thought, morality was basically handed over to the individual conscience of the person. I hope I understood correctly. So what do you do—the first question regarding that statement, regarding this new philosophy—what do you do when there is a contradiction between morality and Jewish law? And I’ll give an example: if Jewish law comes and determines—the Shulchan Arukh says—that if a gentile woman comes to give birth on the Sabbath, one does not deliver her on the Sabbath, because the Talmud determined that saving a life overrides the Sabbath specifically for the life of a Jew who observes Torah and commandments, but if it’s the life of a gentile, it is forbidden to desecrate the Sabbath. Meaning, someone who saves a gentile is in fact violating Jewish law. Now I’m using your terms, Michael. By the way, is your first name Michael? Yes, Miki. Miki, so Miki, I’m using your concepts in order to understand your philosophy, since I’m debating with you and not with the Chazon Ish or Maimonides. What will you do when—what will you do in the above case where there is a contradiction between Jewish law, which determines that it is Sabbath desecration to save a gentile, and, I assume from my impression, that your morality is very similar to mine. Yes, you also mentioned that we’ll have disagreements in gray details, let’s call it that, but on things that are blatantly obvious—like an order that is blatantly illegal, such as the order not to save a gentile on the Sabbath—I assume morally you would agree with me that this is a crime, and there is a contradiction here. What will you do? Violate Jewish law?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll say this: first of all, throughout the generations commentators dealt with this issue in all kinds of ways. The relatively easy way on the theological level is to change the interpretation, meaning to construct another interpretation of the Jewish law in a way that will not contradict the moral principle. For example, there are all kinds of moves like “for the sake of peace,” “because of enmity,” and therefore one nevertheless desecrates the Sabbath in order to save a gentile—when behind that there’s already a big question whether behind it there does not in fact stand the moral principle, and this was only the interpretive product. But I’ll go further. Another thing, a second way—and this is the way I’ve also written about, and I’m not the first, the Meiri already wrote this in the 14th century—that the Jewish law relates to gentiles who conduct themselves in a certain way…

[Speaker B] Miki, sorry, one second, I have to steer you so that—you know, in the end I’ll find you a principled example where there can be a contradiction with morality.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, no, no, I’m not, I’m not.

[Speaker B] Let him, Yaron, one second. Let him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You’re bringing the Meiri, you’re bringing the Meiri.

[Speaker B] No, wait, no, because it’s just—he’s not touching the point. I want to focus him. Suppose there is—you know what—take inheritance of women, the status of women. A woman does not inherit, a man inherits; sons inherit, daughters do not inherit. I assume that you too think, like most Haredim I know also think, that this is not ideal. And that is the Jewish law, that sons inherit. Now don’t come and arrange for me that interpretation means twisting interpretation in order to fit morality, because then I’ll bring you another example, okay? There are in principle many contradictions between your morality, Miki, and Jewish law. Now to twist the—if you want to change Jewish law, say so. Meaning, you’re coming and explaining to me that there is a contradiction between morality and Jewish law, and morality has the upper hand. That’s an answer, and then basically I’ll say, okay, so Jewish law is like that, basically, okay, I will always adapt it to the morality of that period and to our morality as people of faith. So that’s a good answer. But in any case, if you tell me there is no contradiction, that’s also an answer, but you haven’t really answered my question. I…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] You just stopped me in the middle; I’m going to answer everything. I do want to go along this track because it is important, and it answers all the contradictions. So I’m saying, the first thing I said is that they’ll find devices. The second is interpretive change in Jewish law, like what the Meiri did. He says that the Jewish law is speaking about a certain kind of gentile; the gentiles of his day, the gentiles of our day, this Jewish law doesn’t apply to them. Up to this point Yaron is right: basically I arranged it in such a way that there won’t be any conflict at all. Now I get to the third stage. In the third stage I didn’t manage to arrange it. Now I have two—I have a contradiction between two norms, a halakhic norm and a moral norm. Okay? Now I ask you a different question: what do you do when you have a contradiction between two moral norms? After all, there are also conflicts between two moral norms. Jean-Paul Sartre tells about one of his students in occupied Paris during the Holocaust, yes? He came to him and said, look, should I go to—he was helping his elderly, sick, lonely mother, and there was no one else there. The question is whether to help my elderly mother there, or to go to the army of Free France, to de Gaulle, and fight against the Nazis. Both of these things are moral values, but you can’t do both. And he was torn over what to do. Now that’s a conflict between two values that are both moral. From my point of view the conflict between morality and Jewish law is the same thing as an intra-moral conflict. Meaning, there are two values and I am obligated to both. I did not manage to create interpretations that erase the contradiction. Now I have a contradiction between two values. Now this is a great and very weighty question in moral philosophy: how do we solve a problem of contradiction between values? And on this matter…

[Speaker B] No, no, Miki, I’m sorry, you’re comparing an issue of…

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Wait, let me finish, Yaron, let me finish because you’re stopping me again in the middle. Let me finish, I’m just about done.

[Speaker A] Let him finish for a second.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] My claim is that when you have two values one against the other, for a religious person like me—and I represent only myself—in my arsenal of values there is more than the set of moral values that is in Yaron’s arsenal. The same set is in mine too, let’s say except for details, but besides that there are additional values there. From this point on, my situation is no different from Yaron’s. There can be clashes between values. There can be clashes between two moral values and a clash between a moral value and a halakhic value. And what do you do in such clashes? That’s an entire doctrine, also in the field of morality itself, not only in the relation between morality and Jewish law. But the question of conflict exists also for someone who is not at all committed to Jewish law. There are conflicts within morality too. Now I’ll say more than that in one sentence. Sometimes morality will prevail, and that is not a change in Jewish law. I will violate Jewish law because morality tells me so; that is what in the language of the Talmud is called a transgression for the sake of Heaven. That’s one possibility. A second possibility: I will violate morality because I think the halakhic value overrides it. But that’s not because I am not committed to morality—just like in Sartre’s case, if you chose one of the values, it wouldn’t be because you were not committed to the second value, but because the first value overrides the second. When I—one example just to sharpen the point, and with this I’ll finish—there’s an argument about whether to eat chocolate. One says you should eat it. He says chocolate because it’s tasty. The second says it is forbidden to eat chocolate because it makes you fat. Who is right? Both are right. It is both tasty and fattening. Okay, so what do we do? One of them will prefer the criterion of pleasure over the criterion of aesthetics or health, and the other will prefer the opposite. Each person solves his dilemmas or conflicts in his own way. But the fact that there is a conflict between two things is a result of the fact that I am committed to both. It doesn’t mean I’m committed only to one. If I were committed only to one, I wouldn’t be in conflict. I am in conflict because I am committed to both.

[Speaker A] Rabbi Michael, I think I roughly understood what Aaron was trying to argue. It goes roughly like this: the very fact that you have such a value in Jewish law from the outset, that you’re forbidden to save a gentile on the Sabbath—that’s the problem, not that there is a conflict. The very fact that there is any conflict at all in this matter, that value shouldn’t exist in the first place.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay, so you’re bringing me back to the introduction, and that’s why I gave it, because I knew it would also be important later on. I argue that there is independence between Jewish law and morality, two independent categories. Now people say to me, look, on the religious level, Sabbath desecration is a very severe act. By the way, even saving a Jew—at least according to one opinion in the Talmud—does not override the Sabbath. One desecrates the Sabbath only because “so that he may keep many future Sabbaths,” but not because the value of his life itself overrides Sabbath desecration. The value of life, even of a Jew, does not override Sabbath desecration, because Sabbath desecration is a very severe thing. Now of course a secular person says, come on, Sabbath desecration is just some thing, it has no value, so obviously from his point of view the very existence of such a value is absurd, especially when it overrides a moral value. But again, that’s according to his method, and I have a different starting point, as I said earlier. My starting point is that Sabbath desecration for an unworthy purpose is very problematic. It destroys worlds, let’s speak metaphorically. Okay? And morality too is very important, very important. Therefore I am in a dilemma. A real dilemma. And I haven’t now said what will prevail. Sometimes this will prevail and sometimes that will prevail. Each situation on its own merits. I have an entire doctrine of how such conflicts are decided, but this isn’t the place for it. My basic claim is that there is a real conflict here between two values, and conflict means I am committed to both. But the existence of one value does not mean I am not committed to the second. And the fact that it exists there is because there truly are religious values that have religious goals, which Aaron doesn’t accept, so he says of course, then why is there such a value—because he does not recognize the existence of religious goals, only moral goals.

[Speaker B] Wait, I think in my opinion you didn’t understand the question deeply enough. I’ll give you an example so you understand, and I think it’s worth moving on to the second issue I want to talk about. You’re not—it’s not a conflict between the two values of Jewish law and morality. These are two categories of sources of authority for behavior. There is one authoritative source, which is Jewish law, and there is another source of authority, which is the person’s individual conscience, which you call morality. Now what is this actually similar to? It is exactly similar to the problem Maimonides dealt with, and Rabbi Saadia Gaon dealt with, and Rabbeinu Bahya dealt with. All three of them came and argued that the source of authority for a person’s recognition of God and recognition of the correct laws is reason. That is the source of authority. And they also argued there is another source of authority, and that is the sacred writings, the Torah. Now here there are two sources of authority for determining recognition of the world, and two sources of authority for determining the proper laws. And then they ask themselves—Maimonides, Rabbeinu Bahya, and Rabbi Saadia Gaon—if there are two different sources of authority here, what happens when they contradict one another? If they are two different sources of authority. Maimonides, Rabbeinu Bahya, and Rabbi Saadia Gaon say: the source of authority of reason and common sense overrides the source of authority of the sacred writings. Therefore that is the question I’m asking you. This is not a dilemma between some moral value. No. It is a different source of authority, and you must, as the person who invented this philosophy—because this is the first time I’ve heard this idea, and it is an innovative idea in religious terms, because as I said again, the Chazon Ish, Maimonides, and all the rabbis hold that Jewish law is moral and do not make a distinction. In any case, according to your view these are two sources of authority for you, Miki, for how to act as a religious and believing person. You have the halakhic authority, which is Torah-based, which from your point of view is even divine, and there is the moral conscientious source, which as I understood from your words is also an authority. Now I ask: these are two different sources of authority—one divine and one human; morality is human and Jewish law is divine from your point of view. What happens, just as Maimonides asked what happens? The hand of reason has the upper hand. In your case I ask—you need to answer me either this or that, simply so I can understand you—what is your preferred source of authority? Human morality or Jewish law? That’s it. These are two sources of authority, not the same question as two moral values, whether I’m allowed, with the canteen of water I have that is enough for one person to drink, whether I should drink so that I live or whether both of us should die. That is a different question; it’s along the same moral line, and we’ll all always be torn about that. Here the question is: what is your source of authority, you who formulated this idea, what are you saying?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] First of all, this philosophy is not my philosophy. I agree that I presented it, but in fact there is very clear evidence for it; it is very hard to deny. I’ve written it in many places; we won’t get into that here. Beyond that, just one methodological note. Meaning, if you said you’re debating with me, then why are you bringing me Maimonides and Rabbi Saadia Gaon and Duties of the Heart? You’re debating with me; I’m not defending them, I’m defending what I think.

[Speaker B] Fine—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Third, because I do not agree with what you’re putting into my mouth. By the way, in my opinion they don’t all agree with that either. But I do not agree with the assumption that the source of morality, or the source of morality’s validity, is the human being. I do not agree with that. Even Kant, on whom you rely—

[Speaker B] Then I didn’t understand you. You said that, didn’t you? That’s how I understood you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So I’ll explain again. I claim that the source—the source of morality’s validity—is the Holy One, blessed be He, it is God. But I do not need His revelation in order to know what is moral and what is not, because my conscience, which was implanted in me by Him, tells me what He wants from me, what is right and what is not. But in the end, in the end—wait—in the end the source of morality, or the source of morality’s validity, is Him. How do I know what is moral and what is not moral? That is my conscience. And therefore now, when I find myself in a dilemma or conflict between Jewish law and morality, this is a conflict between two values that come from the same source of validity. Both are expectations of the Holy One, blessed be He, from me. And there is no difference whatsoever between that and a dilemma within moral values. I’ll add one more sentence—this is another debate I once had with David Enoch on this issue—that in my view there is no such thing as morality with a human source; that is not valid. Morality by definition must have a divine source. So here too there are arguments; it’s not just some personal position of mine. That of course has to be discussed separately, but I’m only saying this is not some personal position of mine; it follows from arguments that in my view are very strong. There is no difference whatsoever between a religious conflict—a religious value versus a moral value—and a conflict between two moral values. The way you solve your moral conflicts, I solve my religious or religio-moral conflicts, exactly the same way. And it is true that there is what is called in moral philosophy incommensurability of values, lack of a common measure. And therefore it is very hard to map out the way we decide such a dilemma. But that is a topic for another lecture. I’m saying: map out for me the way you do it, and I’ll do copy-paste for the way I do it. It’s the same thing. There is no different question with respect to me than what you would ask about a dilemma you yourself are in.

[Speaker A] Wait, and one second, Yair, before you speak—and regarding, if we go back now to what Yaron said earlier, gentile and Sabbath: you see some gentile, a car hits him on the Sabbath, what does Rabbi Michael do? Because here we have both the halakhic aspect and the moral one. Okay, right, really I thought… And both have divine validity.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] All values have divine validity from my point of view. Morality, Jewish law, everything. Regarding the gentile—so, this is how it is: specifically regarding a gentile I am not in a dilemma, because it is clear to me that the Meiri is right. And the Meiri said that gentiles who conduct themselves in a reasonably human way—which perhaps in the time of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), or in the time of the Sages, was rarer—the attitude toward them should be like the attitude toward any other human being, and you should desecrate the Sabbath in order to save them. The Meiri already wrote this in the 14th century; I completely agree. Rabbi Kook continues along that line; no matter, I’m not alone in this. That is one thing. But even if, let’s say, it did contradict, and I could not find such an interpretive solution—which is quite rare, by the way, but it certainly can happen—in such a situation it could be that I would still save the gentile. And I’ll tell you why. Because from my point of view, if I were convinced that this is what the Holy One, blessed be He, requires of me—if it were written in the Torah: do not save a gentile on the Sabbath—it could be that I would not save him. With a great deal of heartache, but it could be that I would not save him. Because I would understand from the Holy One, blessed be He, that the value of Sabbath observance is more important than the value of life. Also regarding a Jew, I said this earlier, this is true also regarding the value of the life of a Jew. But it is not written in the Torah. It is a reasoning of the Sages, and the Sages too can always be mistaken. I do not attribute any holiness to the words of the Sages. I spoke earlier about the Torah; certainly not the words of the Sages. The Sages could make mistakes. And since I am not one hundred percent sure that this is really what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants, a human life is too high a price, in my view, to pay in exchange for that level of certainty. Now it’s true that many religious people obviously at least won’t agree to admit that. Maybe they would do it, but they wouldn’t agree to admit it. I’m putting it on the table. Because in my view the level of certainty I have in the religious value is not sufficient for it to prevail. But if there were something about which I had full certainty, as much as possible, yes? I heard from the mouth of divine might itself, just as Abraham heard regarding the binding of Isaac from the Holy One, blessed be He Himself—then yes, from his point of view the divine command overrode the moral principle. And I think—again, from the armchair; I haven’t been in such a situation and I hope I won’t be—but from the armchair, in such a situation I think that is what I would have had to do. But that does not mean I am not committed to morality, and it does not mean I would not have pangs of conscience over the matter. Of course I would. It would be a very difficult step. But I believe with complete faith that Sabbath observance would probably, if that were indeed the case, be more important, and therefore I would do it. Like any value dilemma where one value overrides the other, you grit your teeth and go with the one against the other—not because I am not committed to it.

[Speaker A] When, if I may ask, when from your point of view would Jewish law—give me some law and some moral element, some moral value, such that if they came up for you, you would choose Jewish law? I’d like to know, I mean, what exactly your moral compass is.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Earlier I spoke about things written in the Torah, because anything the Sages said, I am not one hundred percent sure they were right. The Sages can make mistakes. This is somewhat connected to our second topic, but the Sages can make mistakes. Therefore I need full certainty; it’s a probabilistic multiplication, yes? The chance that it’s correct times the value—that’s basically the expected gain that causes me to obey or not obey. And when the moral value is completely clear to me, or the moral harm is completely clear to me, I need very high certainty in order to violate it—when it’s a severe moral problem, I mean. But there are certain things written explicitly in the Torah, and in those things I really think I need to sacrifice a moral value. Now usually it won’t be human life, but in principle even human life—I would have to do it. For example, I don’t know, killing Amalek. That is a crazy moral injustice. And all the religious apologetics that explain: no, not at all, this is sublime morality that we simply don’t understand, but there is some moral principle there—I don’t buy it. I don’t buy it because, as I said, conscience for me is the basis for knowing what is moral and what is not. And therefore that is a moral problem, but on the other hand there is a religious value in doing it. And if it is written in the Torah, then I am fairly convinced that this is probably what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants. Now by the way, even here there are already interpretations that somehow allow you to get around the matter, but on the principled level, if I had no interpretation and a certain thing were written in the Torah, that is probably what must be done. If you want a value that is not human life, a somewhat less cardinal value: the wife of a priest who is raped must separate from her husband. She was raped, this poor woman, so not only the trauma of being raped—she also has to separate from her husband and children, break up the family, and everyone wants to stay together. In such a case I would probably be in favor of their having to separate. Despite the terrible heartbreak I would feel. Because if the Torah said so, then apparently that is more important than the moral problem created here.

[Speaker A] Maybe I can just clarify what you said. In the end, you’re saying that we need to educate soldiers that murder is forbidden, but when it comes to values like protecting the state and protecting the citizens—for which you enlisted—you’ll do that. Even if it’s not moral, even if it’s not moral to throw a grenade at a terrorist—meaning, from the standpoint of your conscience, you see the terrorist blown apart and the blood spraying everywhere, it’s horrifying.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] More than that. It’s not only throwing a grenade at a terrorist. It’s killing innocent people too—when there’s no choice, that’s what I mean. When you have no choice, war requires you to kill innocent people, because killing a terrorist is easy, okay? He threatens you, you need to defend yourself. But sometimes war also requires you to harm people who are not threatening you. Now, someone whose heart doesn’t hurt over that is just wicked. But someone whose heart does hurt—that still doesn’t mean that’s what he’ll do, because sometimes there are other considerations that turn out to be more important, apparently, and they override it. And for me, that’s also the scheme in these kinds of conflicts between Jewish law and morality.

[Speaker A] Please, Yaron.

[Speaker B] Okay, I want to move to the second topic. No, wait, wait—

[Speaker A] Just—what do you think about what he said? Because there was a very, very strong argument here just now.

[Speaker B] A strong argument? What argument? I didn’t hear an argument here. I didn’t hear an argument. What’s the argument?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Explain. A summary, a summary.

[Speaker A] The argument is that from his perspective—what he feels in his life—it’s exactly like how you now see that there is such a thing as moral and immoral, and that comes from God. In the end, you can’t say that some individual who steals is wicked—you need some God to validate that. The same applies in Jewish law. So when you have some conflict between them, then just like in a moral discussion, you need to see what exactly you should do—you need to, you know, just like in a moral conflict, say what is good and what is bad according to the situation, the circumstances, everything that’s happening.

[Speaker B] I don’t know. I’m addressing what Miki said, and we spoke about two categories that he defined—I’m following his method. There’s a halakhic category and there’s a moral category. The halakhic category is written in the sacred texts, and the moral category is from personal conscience. And when I asked him what he would do when they contradict each other—after all, those are two sources of authority—he answered that it’s really one source of authority, because in fact personal conscience also comes from God, and therefore it’s considered a dilemma of what God prefers: does He prefer that I follow my personal conscience or what’s written in the Torah? And then he said that if it’s written explicitly in the Torah, he’ll follow what’s written in the Torah. If it’s not written explicitly, but rather the Sages said it, since he doesn’t relate to the Sages as though they are the Torah scroll and they make a lot of mistakes, then he’ll go with morality. Now I understood his philosophy on this issue, I don’t see that I have anything more to ask. Do you agree or disagree? That’s the question. Obviously I disagree—it’s absurd, what he’s saying—but leave it, that’s not important, this absurdity—wait, but do you understand, no—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] He disagrees because he doesn’t accept the basic assumptions. That’s fine. There are assumptions.

[Speaker B] Right. So now I want to move precisely—right—to the underlying assumption, where I see an internal contradiction, at least from what I understood from what Miki said. On the one hand he says that he thinks human life has to involve critical thinking, even as a religious person. And on the other hand, he has the point of departure on which he bases himself: that the source of the book—the Torah, Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, Deuteronomy, I assume that’s the book he means, and if not, correct me Miki, which book you think is divine and which is not. In any case, if those books are from God—that’s his starting point—do you apply critical thinking, which you support and think someone who doesn’t think critically—I don’t know how you relate to him, but it’s not good—do you apply critical thinking to that basic assumption? And if you do apply critical thinking, then explain to me—because I also apply critical thinking, and I reach the conclusion that it’s absurd, it’s a comic tragedy to think that this book is a divine book. Now, you hinted briefly that you believe in the story of revelation. I’m saying that once a person—what I understood between the lines of what Miki said—is that he believes the source is divine because of the story of revelation. Now, the story—and then I ask: regarding that story, the revelation, do you apply critical thinking to it? Because when I apply my critical thinking, it seems absurd to me—absurd to think even for a moment, for a normal person who doesn’t have, I don’t know, some other issues and is clear in critical thinking, to think that this has a divine source. Because what is this story of revelation? Where is it even written? It’s written in the very place that I want to examine. Revelation meaning the revelation at Mount Sinai? Yes, that story of Mount Sinai—that’s what I understood from what he said. If I misunderstood, Miki, correct me in your answer. But I understood that there is a story of divine revelation, he believes that story, and therefore he believes that the whole book was given by God, or at least most of it. And I ask—and on the other hand he agrees—look, I once had a debate with a Hasid during Sukkot, and when I asked him this question—on what basis do you believe that God wrote the Torah?—the Hasid answered, and this was before a pre-military academy, he said that he himself was at Mount Sinai. Yes, he was there, because there is reincarnation of souls and he was there, and since he was there then there was a revelation. So now, even if—and then he gave the example that if someone saw an accident and then a police officer came to investigate how the accident happened and says the opposite of what I saw, I’ll tell the police officer he’s wrong because I was there. And that’s regarding revelation—even if you bring contradictions, bring this, he was there, that Hasid. So fine, I have nothing to discuss with a person like that, who says he was there and it happened and he knows it happened. But if someone doesn’t think he was there and relies on the written text, then that written text is precisely what’s under discussion, and it is basically a sloppy book, written in a confused way, and any reasonable person understands that people wrote it and edited it very sloppily. So on what basis do you think that this is the starting point—that God wrote this confused book? It’s simply unclear to me.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll answer that on two levels. One level: every one of us—you too—has certain conclusions that he lives by. For example, people—I don’t know—someone who thinks murder is forbidden, or that human life has value. You can’t ask him: don’t you apply critical thinking to that itself as well? Maybe he does, maybe he doesn’t, but it seems to me that almost nobody reaches a different conclusion. Meaning, even someone who applies critical thinking can, surprisingly enough, arrive in the end at conclusions. And when I arrive at a conclusion, that doesn’t mean I didn’t use critical thinking. I have a conclusion; I reached the conclusion that indeed revelation happened. Now, you can ask—you can’t tell me that I’m not using critical thinking. You can ask me on what basis I reach that or not. But the fact that I have a conclusion doesn’t mean I don’t have critical thinking. That’s what I’m asking.

[Speaker B] Second thing—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] As I already said at the beginning of our discussion, I don’t reach that conclusion because of the content. And I also disagree with you that the story of the tradition is based inside the content written in the book itself that we’re discussing. The tradition is a story that accompanies the book. It passes orally and passes the book on to me together with the story surrounding it. And if that story reaches me through tradition, now we need to discuss it. I’m not saying it’s a decisive argument that everyone must accept, but this is some tradition that is passed on along a broad front, and for me it inspires trust. Now, since I reached the conclusion that this book is the word of God in terms of the context, now I begin discussing its content.

[Speaker B] No, okay, I understood that, Miki, but convince me. If you reached that conclusion through a process of critical thinking—this is the conclusion you reached, that’s what you say, I understood correctly—through a process of rational critical thinking, the way you have a rationale in every other field, you went through a process of critical thinking and reached the conclusion that the source of the book is God. Tell me the process, share it with me. Wait, I’ll also say one quick thing.

[Speaker A] Rabbi Michael, do you believe that there was a revelation at Mount Sinai? Yes. How? Come on, that seems to me to be the question Sharon can sum up with. Explain the structure of the thinking.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That’s the question. Look, the path of my critical thinking that leads to this—I wrote a book about it, meaning I laid it out there. I’ll tell you schematically, because really this is not the place to go into all the details, but schematically it works like this. From philosophical arguments I arrive at the conclusion that there is a God. In the detached philosophical sense—not connected right now to questions of tefillin, Sabbath, Judaism, and Sinai. Okay? Some God who created the world. I also reach the conclusion, on a parallel track, that God is the one who implanted in me the moral obligation and is the source of its validity, as I said earlier. If so, then apparently He has some expectations of me. He created me, or the world, for some purpose.

[Speaker B] Wait, but I don’t understand the rational steps here, you’re just stating things.

[Speaker A] No no no, wait a second, Yaron, wait—I want to say something. Yaron, I also know there’s another debate he had with an atheist about God—that’s not the discussion now.

[Speaker B] He’s just saying—wait, let’s assume there is a God. No, I have no question about God, I’m not asking about God. No, I know, but you—

[Speaker A] are saying, like, let’s see—you’re saying I want now to get the whole rational structure. No, he can’t bring all that, it would take forever.

[Speaker B] No no no, that’s not it. I’m asking like this: there is a God, okay, let’s leave that aside, that’s one topic. And then he decides that God implanted morality in him.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But that’s what he’s about to say—why are you stopping him?

[Speaker A] Go on, Rabbi Michael.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So after I reached the conclusion that there is a God and that He expects things of me—because morality too is something He expects of me, and also just generally, if someone created the world, apparently He wants something from it—I ask myself what He wants. Even before revelation, before everything, I ask myself what He wants. If He wants morality from me, that’s the simple, expected possibility, because that’s an obligation that I… in my view that’s not reasonable. It’s not reasonable because morality is a means of creating a proper society, but you can’t say that morality is the purpose of society. Don’t create a society and then there’s no need for it to be proper. Meaning, it can’t be that the purpose of society is to uphold moral principles and be proper. So because of that, I don’t think morality is a sufficient explanation. All of this is a priori considerations—still no revelation, nothing. I’m calculating what is reasonable, what I should expect. And then I say: okay, then apparently He has religious aims, as I said before, which are different aims, not moral aims. But I don’t know those religious aims—how would I know what is incumbent on me? I said: okay, apparently He needs to communicate that to me in some way. Up to this point, I get there from the a priori philosophical side. Now I go from the other side. On the other side, some tradition reaches me saying: God revealed Himself, the giving of the Torah, and He wants from you—do this and don’t do that. Okay? Now, if only the second side existed without the first, there would certainly be room to doubt this whole thing. Fine, traditions can arise this way, they can arise that way. We know quite a few national stories and mythologies. But since beforehand, even before the tradition arrives, from a philosophical consideration I reach the conclusion that there ought to be some kind of revelation that would convey to me what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants—then a tradition comes saying that this indeed happened. Now of course you have to get into the details of how reliable it is and so on, I’m speaking only in broad outline. So these things come together for me, and I reach the conclusion that it’s reasonable. It’s reasonable. There is nothing certain in the universe, including what I just said—there is nothing certain in the universe. But yes, it’s reasonable; in my view it is reasonable enough for me to go with it. And together with that, this brings me back to the expected-value considerations I mentioned earlier: my level of certainty in this matter really is not complete. In anything, ever, I never have complete certainty. And therefore there is a limit to the price I’d be willing to pay for these values, because truly I’m not one hundred percent sure it’s correct, but it is sufficiently credible for me to go with it. That is basically the claim in a nutshell. Now there are lots of details needed to fill in the argument—witness testimony arguments and debates over whether that argument works or not, and David Hume, all that—I wrote about it, and I don’t think this is the place to get into all of that.

[Speaker A] No, but I do think that throughout the whole argument there is one element that I do care about, and I think Aharon does too, because that’s really the issue. How did you jump from the first cause—from the initial mover of the world, which is God, who doesn’t have to have any connection to religion, maybe He doesn’t even know what that is—to suddenly having some kind of relationship with Him and there being moral duties or religious duties? Like, where did that come from in relation to the first cause? It could be that He just wanted to create a world—He created the laws, of evolution and gravity and everything, and He just let it run and went on to another project. Do you understand what I’m saying?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, but I’m saying—I explained this earlier, I can only repeat it. In the end, my claim is that the default assumption or point of departure is that if someone did something, he probably wants something from it. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe God isn’t built that way—it could be. But that’s the starting point. Unless someone shows me otherwise, that’s my assumption. Just as I assume the law of gravity is true on the moon too, even before I measured it, because if it’s true then it’s probably true. If they show me it isn’t, then I’ll say it isn’t, okay? But that’s the starting point. Now, since He wants something from me, including morality—that is, He has very concrete expectations of me—then it makes a lot of sense to expect that He would tell me what He wants. Morality can’t be enough—rather, the assumption is religious values, everything I said earlier—and then the tradition arrives. Maybe an example will sharpen this a bit more. Look, if they had told me thirty years ago—I remember when Barack Obama was elected, I almost cried from genuine excitement, and I’m not a sentimental type. Why? I’m not a sentimental type because there was some crazy historical process there. Meaning, black people in the United States until a few decades ago couldn’t even own a kiosk, and suddenly there was a black president of the United States. And I’m not crazy about him after what he did, never mind, but I remember that moment. Now, if someone had told me forty years ago that the United States had a black president named Barack Obama and that he passed health-care reform, I would have told him: and I met Tinkerbell yesterday morning and we rode off into the sunset together. Okay? But if I know that a black president was elected in the United States—that hurdle I’ve already crossed. Now someone tells me, you know, his name is Barack Obama and he passed health-care reform. Okay? It could be that’s not true, but I say once—

[Speaker A] once I’ve reached the conclusion that the starting point already exists, someone—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] now tells me that the president is this kind and not that kind—fine, okay, legitimate.

[Speaker A] If I don’t know at all that there is a black president in the United States, then I’d have the person who says that hospitalized. Same thing here. If I reach the philosophical conclusion that there is a God—that hurdle I’ve crossed—and that He wants things from me, now a tradition comes and says: look, He revealed Himself and wants this and that. Maybe yes, maybe no, but after I’ve already reached the conclusion that this is exactly what one should expect—then why shouldn’t I accept it? There’s a connection here. The two things I described are like digging a canal from two sides; when they connect, each side gains more strength than it has on its own. The witness-testimony argument, in my view, is questionable. The philosophical argument doesn’t bring me to religious obligation. But the witness-testimony argument plus the philosophical argument do create a picture that, in my view, is credible. Can I ask a question, Miki? Yes. You said this isn’t certain, right? This argument. So here’s my question to you, and you agree that one should also think critically about the starting point. My question is whether there is anything—some argument or some reality—that could cast doubt on and undermine your basic assumption that the Torah was written by God. Is there something theoretical that if I showed it to you, you’d say, okay, I was mistaken? In principle yes, of course. If they bring me strong counter-evidence. Give me an example, give me an example, give me an example. Why—wait, I’ll explain the question more. Why does it seem to me like going in circles in a closed loop? Because you say that the content tells you nothing because you already determined it is divine, and if it is divine then the content is irrelevant. So basically the text itself, the content of the biblical text—even if there are mistakes, repetitions, meaningless things, contradictions—it doesn’t matter, it’s divine. That’s how I understand you. So basically you’ve blocked it—you’ve created a thesis that is closed to criticism, to critical thinking, because the content is not relevant because it is divine. Now why is it divine? Because there is a God, and then I also assume He expects something from me, and if He expects something from me then He’ll tell me in some way. And how will He tell me? I have a tradition that He said it in the form of a book and a story and a revelation. Do you understand the circularity here and the block—that in this matter you’ve basically lost critical thinking. Okay, so look, I don’t know if I lost critical thinking, but there is a logical bug in your argument. The logical bug says that I said my conclusion that the book is holy is not connected to its content. Okay? But on the other hand I also said that I have reasons, rational in my view and compatible with critical thinking, that are not inside the book, which lead me to the conclusion that this book is holy. Now you say to me like this: if nothing inside the book can refute this, then this is a claim that cannot be refuted. No, I’m asking you what—what refutation. I’m trying to answer. Okay. All I’m saying is that the argument and the discussion should not take place inside the book but outside it. Now if you bring me—what could refute the claim, that’s why I say your claim is closed. I’m trying to answer. Okay. You expect there to be some content in the book that would constitute counter-evidence; that would be my refutation. But that’s what I told you: it isn’t built on the content of the book, and therefore—wait, wait—and therefore the content of the book cannot be counter-evidence. What can be counter-evidence? Whatever contradicts the move I build toward the holiness of the book—not you. So if I build toward the holiness of the book a line of argument like I described earlier, and someone shows me there is a bug in the philosophical arguments—tell me what it could be. A bug in the philosophical arguments. For example, maybe you can get to morality even without God. In my opinion you can’t, but he says you can—regarding validity, not knowing what morality will be but that morality is valid—you can’t get that without God. Or someone shows me that my arguments for the existence of God are flawed, defective. So for example, he already knocked down the first step in my argument. Someone else will say to me, listen, this whole tradition is a historical farce, completely a farce. Then I have the first side of the canal, but the second side connecting back doesn’t exist. That would refute my argument. But you’re looking for a refutation of my argument on a plane that it doesn’t deal with, so that’s absurd. Of course it won’t be refuted from there. You won’t refute physics with some medical finding, because physics doesn’t deal with medicine, it deals with physics. I’m just asking theoretically—I simply want to understand your worldview. Suppose I find, from the Hebrew Bible itself, from its own content, a statement that actually there was no tradition. No tradition was passed down; your second layer doesn’t exist—from the content I bring it. Here, it says that no tradition passes from father to son, that’s it. Would that be a refutation for you? Would that content, the content of the text… constitute evidence for you that there was no testimony passed from father to son? If, as a position, it were clear, then yes. I know there is some—let’s say evidence, not very clear—but yes, evidence, that Rabbi Yehoshua ben Hananiah seems to say “It is not in heaven” regarding Jewish law, that Jewish law is only human activity. Ben Hananiah, but I don’t think that’s relevant here. “It is not in heaven” means that if God reveals Himself, He determines nothing in the halakhic sphere; we’re supposed to work with the tools we have. That’s not—but the tools we have came from Sinai. No no, I don’t think that’s relevant to the discussion. You can talk on another level, for example the book found in the days of Josiah, or things like that, which ostensibly show that there really was no tradition, but that’s not true. We can get into those passages and I don’t think that’s true. Why? It says that the children of Israel in general didn’t—most of the kings of Israel worshiped… That’s true, there were many sinners, no doubt. Idolatry, and in general the Torah was forgotten by Israel. In practice, the Torah was forgotten by Israel. I’ll give you an example: the content, the content contradicts that. If today a prophet came and rebuked—I don’t know—the president, prime minister, whoever, someone in power, and told him, listen, you are not keeping the word of God, and so on and so on—what would they do with him? Either hospitalize him or say he’s a crazy guy and send him home, right? But the prophets who rebuke kings—the kings persecute them. The kings persecute them, and it bothers them, and it keeps coming back all the time, and all the way back. That means those sins are committed against a background of faith. They know there is a God and there are commandments, only what? There are impulses, there is sin, we’re all human. And when a prophet comes and rebukes you for that, obviously it lands on soil that stings—that’s why they fight him. And therefore I argue that the fact that everyone sinned—of course they sinned—but not because there was no tradition and no obligation, but because there were impulses; we’re all human. Miki, so my question is this: I understood from your words that what is written in the Torah is the word of God, and therefore you will act contrary to your personal conscience. Is a priest—since it is written that a high priest must marry a young maiden, and the definition of maiden—I don’t know how you would define what a maiden is—something like age twelve. Let’s just say that, just to understand the idea. Or “I gave my daughter to this man,” that a father can sell his daughter as a maidservant and can marry her off to another man—what do you do with these things? So with these things the answer is very simple, and by the way it also connects to that passage from Maimonides that you brought in the opening. When it says that a father can give his daughter over to someone with boils or all kinds of—I don’t know—various terrible afflictions that he might imagine, it doesn’t say that he has a commandment. No, but that’s the Sages. That’s the Sages, and you’re leaving the Sages aside. Wait, wait. It says it’s permitted. Permitted means it is his right. I assume this right was given to him because he needs to ensure his daughter’s economic future, and in those times women could not support themselves if they didn’t have a spouse, a family unit. And therefore if he can’t find another match or another arrangement, then even this arrangement is his right—he can decide. But if we see that he is doing it in an arbitrary and immoral way, then what intervenes here is not Jewish law but morality. Jewish law says: you may. But morality can say: you may, but you will not do this. And the religious court will not let you do it either, if we see that it’s not actually being done in a justified way. And if I go back to the example you brought in the opening from Maimonides, in the laws of forbidden relations, that a man can do whatever he wants with his wife—yes, have relations from here and from there and do whatever he wants—that’s simply a reading-comprehension mistake; it’s not even a matter of debate. A reading-comprehension mistake. If you look at the beginning of the ruling—maybe bring it up—laws of forbidden relations, chapter 21, law 9, that a man does with his wife whatever he wants—that is simply a lack of understanding. That ruling begins with: a man’s wife is permitted to him. What does that mean? That all the acts he does are not bound up with prohibition. It has absolutely nothing to do with the question of whether he can use his wife and do this against her will. That is not the discussion. A man’s rights with respect to his wife are detailed in the laws of marriage, not in the laws of forbidden relations. In the laws of forbidden relations, the question is which sexual acts are permitted and which are forbidden. It has nothing to do with whether you own your wife, whether you can do with her what you want or not. Therefore what Maimonides says there is that there is no halakhic restriction—if both want it, they can do what they want. There is no halakhic restriction on that. But if the wife objects, that has nothing to do with forbidden relations. It has to do with the laws of marriage. The question whether a husband can force on his wife things she doesn’t want is not written here in Maimonides. So that’s just a misunderstanding. But I’ll say more than that—even if it were written, which it isn’t, as I said—even if it were written, all that would be said here is that halakhically he can do it, he has the right to do it, but morally it is not moral. And therefore the religious court would not let him—once he does that and sticks to the halakhic plane—because Jewish law is one aspect, but it is not tied to morality. Morality is the same morality for Jews and non-Jews, and the rules are the same rules. And therefore this is exactly the same repeated mistake in all these examples. There isn’t the slightest connection between this halakhic ruling and a moral statement. Okay. Wait, wait, do you want to say something? I don’t know why you went to Maimonides, I’m going back—of course I’m not, he didn’t answer my question. The question—I mean, he did answer, but only half. I asked three questions. I asked like this: what do you do with what is written in the Torah? Forget Maimonides and the Sages, because in any case they are not your source of authority. Your source of authority is the Bible, the Torah. And there it says that “I gave my daughter to this man,” and he can sell her as a maidservant even though she is a child, and you said that in that period—you attributed it to the period. Okay, notice what you did. That means that now the Torah is suddenly a little not relevant—suddenly God’s will here is period-dependent. And it’s not an eternal will, which is interesting. Because I always attributed to you the understanding that the text is divine, and that therefore it also follows that it is eternal. But here suddenly I see some kind of reservation and it’s not eternal. So ask—start the question. Fine. Okay, so we’ve really seen that the two interviewees here, who are having this debate, ultimately have two certain systems of thought. One thinks this way and one thinks differently. And we can’t ignore the fact that values ultimately affect the state politically. Because what is a state, what is politics? Politics is ultimately the way values influence society and the state, and the way you as an individual want the values you believe in to influence the state. If I’m extremely religious, really some crazy zealot, I’ll want everyone to keep the Sabbath and I’m even willing—I don’t know—to kill for that. On the other hand, if I’m a complete atheist, a kind of liberal, I’m not so interested in how people worship, but I do care that morality be maintained more or less in one way or another, and that there be liberalism, this utopian vision of the secular. So I’d be very happy if Rabbi Michael Abraham would please present his view of how, in accordance with Jewish law, he wants the state to function, and afterward Yaron too, I’d be very happy if you’d present the way you want the state to function politically. So Rabbi Michael, please. Well, this question needs to be divided into two parts. The first part deals with the state as it is today, with the human and ideological composition that makes it up today, most of which is not committed to Torah and commandments. And there is the second question of what I see as the utopia—a state in which everyone observes Torah and commandments, another kind of state—how it ought to behave. Two different questions. Regarding the second question, it seems to me there’s no point debating it, because Yaron, I assume at least, has no position on it. He doesn’t want such a state; he probably also doesn’t think there will be one, but never mind. It’s not—he has no alternative model regarding a state in which everyone keeps Torah and commandments, because from his point of view it’s irrelevant. I’ll just say that from my perspective, that state is a state that should be governed according to Jewish law, but its law book would look pretty similar to the current law book. Not entirely, but pretty similar. Because in the end, practice is stronger than all the principles, and Jewish law itself recognizes that. So that’s regarding the utopian state. As for today’s state: in today’s state there is a population most of which is not committed to Torah and commandments. There are traditional people and so on, but most are not fully committed to Jewish law. Yes, that’s quite clear; there’s even a majority on that, a significant majority. Now the question is what to do in such a state. In such a state I apply the two categories I spoke about earlier. The two categories that for me are both the will of God: morality and Jewish law. Morality is universal, and I see it the way Yaron sees it—again, aside from details that one can debate—but I see it the same way. Therefore my moral expectations of the state as it exists today are presumably similar to his. I want it to conduct itself fairly, properly, morally, considerately, fully liberally. I support liberal education, I support liberal conduct, a secular liberal democratic state. And not only do I support it and compromise on it—I will fight for it against whoever doesn’t want to do that. For me, that is an ideal, not a compromise because I have no choice since the majority of the public isn’t with me. In the current situation, those who want to do otherwise—we can see with our own eyes what’s happening these days among the people who want to bring their religious halakhic values into the conduct of the state. As for Jewish law, which is another category, in my view in a state of the kind we have today it’s not relevant. When I oppose coercion of Jewish law, I think not only tactically do I oppose coercion—morally I oppose coercion—but real morality, not because it won’t help or something like that. I think it is wrong to coerce. Even though I believe in religious values, together with that I also believe that coercion is forbidden. Second, it’s also not relevant; it won’t achieve anything. Because observing commandments or refraining from transgressions under coercion is, in my view, something valueless. So what’s the point of coercing? Beyond the fact that it’s wrong. Therefore, bottom line, with respect to the state that exists today, it seems to me that my vision overall would be very similar to Yaron’s vision: a secular, democratic, liberal state, aside from political disagreements that exist between any two people. And Yaron? First of all, I’m happy to hear that. I hope he succeeds in influencing many religious people with his philosophical approach so that we’ll at least have a liberal, secular state, and that all of us will be together—religious, secular, traditional—because it really is very, very important that we have some shared principle as a state today, and we need that, we long for that, especially in these difficult days we’re in. Therefore I’m very happy to hear what he says and I hope he’ll have a platform to persuade more religious people, and especially Haredim. Now, what I do want to clarify with Miki is what will happen in a secular liberal state if it legislates laws—and every law in a state is coercion—that in fact contradict Jewish law. For example, women’s inheritance—because of equality of human rights, women’s status would have to be identical to men’s status, and then they would say that a woman must inherit. Or suppose animal suffering. Suppose the state comes to the conclusion that slaughter causes animal suffering, and then it decides as a secular moral liberal state that ritual slaughter is invalid, and that it is possible and preferable to kill the animal in a gentler and more compassionate way. And suppose—I’m talking about a situation like that in which Miki would agree that it is gentler and more compassionate. I don’t want to get into the debate over whether slaughter is compassionate or not—suppose we find a method much more compassionate than slaughter, and then the state requires doing it that way. What would he say? What would he do in such a state? That interests me. Cultivated meat. Well, cultivated meat is again a technical solution, so you sidestepped the problem. He’s asking about the problem itself. A principled question. Like, what if a liberal state—where the liberal understanding, including Miki’s own liberal understanding—becomes such that boom, it contradicts Jewish law? What do you do? Look, you have to distinguish here between two things. Liberalism—there is thin liberalism and thick liberalism, or thin democracy and thick democracy. Now, when you’re talking about the question of what the public sphere looks like, or allowing people to distribute inheritance equally to women and men, I will fight for a law that allows it. But the question whether the law should force it—I’m not sure I would join that. Not because it necessarily bothers me, but because I think there are people who think differently, and there is room to take even non-liberal agendas into account when the state is liberal, and it depends on the question of the intensity of the price, how high the cost is, and how important the value in question is. For example, I support equality for women, but on the other hand I strongly oppose secular coercion on religious people not to do things with separation, for example, okay? Even though I understand there is a liberal value of equality and of non-separation and so on. In my view, this is a value that does not justify coercion of a group—which, by the way, I’m not part of—but a group that sincerely believes, genuinely wants to do things with separation. So I think the line here is a fine line, and I don’t know how to give a general criterion. In principle I support liberalism within the limits of a certain level of coercion, the intensity of the value involved. I don’t know how to say anything sharper or more sweeping than that. Okay. Fine. What would you do with slaughter, for example? I can’t hear. If it’s a direct frontal clash with slaughter. If, say, we reach such a situation. No, slaughter is not a frontal clash. It just means that religious people won’t eat meat. You’re not forcing them to commit transgressions. For example, I’m vegetarian too, for reasons of animal suffering, moral reasons. But you’re not forcing them not to eat non-kosher meat. You’re only saying: meat won’t be eaten here because it’s not moral. Say there were a scientific finding—I don’t think science can determine such a thing—but say there were a scientific finding that says animals suffer terribly when they are slaughtered. Let’s assume it for the sake of discussion. In that case, I think the state should prohibit it. And if we can’t eat meat, fine, then we can’t eat meat. So that also connects exactly—it connects exactly to what you said earlier. There is Jewish law, but there is also morality. And we need to understand how exactly we act according to these two values. Right. I understand, and I really enjoyed the conversation with you. It was a pleasure. I understood exactly what Yaron wants, I understood what you want, Rabbi Michael Abraham. In the end, you gave here a very, very nice framework regarding Jewish law and morality, and in my opinion it’s quite convincing. Of course Yaron won’t be convinced—I don’t think he’ll ever be convinced—but all right, and I think it’s good to have discussions like this. I thank you very much, and thank you both very much. Thank you. Thank you, Eyal. Thank you, Miki. Goodbye. Goodbye. Goodbye, bye bye.