חדש באתר: NotebookLM עם כל תכני הרב מיכאל אברהם

Dr. Michael Avraham: Conversation Has Become a Serious Problem! + Practical Tools for Better Communication #Episode 130 – Derech HaMachshava with Shiran Raz

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This is an English translation (via GPT-5.4). Read the original Hebrew version.

This transcript was produced automatically using artificial intelligence. There may be inaccuracies in the transcribed content and in speaker identification.

🔗 Link to the original lesson

🔗 Link to the transcript on Sofer.AI

Table of Contents

  • Opening the conversation and introducing the guest
  • Diagnosis: the problem is not style but the absence of arguments
  • Cause versus solution: educating for systematic thinking and tools for thinking
  • The Golan and Rabin example: two independent questions become two camps
  • The conversion example and the judge from Ashdod: the complexity of many questions disappears into two camps
  • Overload, emotion, and lack of mental space: the host’s claim and the response about responsibility
  • The feedback loop: enlisting every aspect to one position turns the other side into “evil or stupid”
  • Facts as a substitute for arguments, fake news, and unconscious biases
  • The judicial reform, lack of trust, and the veil of ignorance
  • Practical exercise: stop, formulate an argument, and defend the opposing position
  • Stereotypes, profiling, and “these and those”: legitimacy versus truth
  • Silencing, digital media, and cautious optimism about change
  • Conclusion and invitation to continue

Summary

General overview

The host presents a conversation about public discourse and communication on social media and in private life with Dr. and Rabbi Michael Abraham, and he argues that anger, rudeness, and hatred are only symptoms, while the core problem is the absence of argumentative thinking and the absence of listening to arguments. He describes how people form a position from the gut and then recruit arguments to support it, which creates dichotomies, delegitimization of the other side, and loss of trust in democratic mechanisms. The host emphasizes the role of emotion, overload, and pressure in people’s lack of availability for thinking, and asks about practical steps for change. He proposes systematic training in formulating arguments and in the ability to seriously present the opposing position, in order to arrive at a firm stance that is still aware of the complexity.

Opening the conversation and introducing the guest

The host describes the topic as an important, interesting, and quite complicated one that takes place both on social media and in private and family forums, and introduces Dr. and Rabbi Michael Abraham as a PhD in physics, a lecturer at Bar-Ilan University, someone engaged in philosophy, science, and Jewish thought, and the author of over 30 books. The host invites listeners to join the Telegram discussion channel and mentions her “detox days” from the internet and that she removed the television from her home, while Abraham asks to be called “Miki.”

Diagnosis: the problem is not style but the absence of arguments

Abraham states that anger, hatred, and rudeness are not the essence of the problem but only outward expressions, and that he himself is not bothered by curses or insults as long as there is listening and weighing of arguments. He argues that the central problem is that the discourse is not based on arguments but on gut feeling, and that even when arguments are presented, they are drafted after the fact to justify an emotional conclusion that was decided in advance.

Cause versus solution: educating for systematic thinking and tools for thinking

The host argues that not every person is capable of reaching a level of discourse where they can present an argument, and that there may be an “empty space” in terms of ability. Abraham agrees in principle, but distinguishes between diagnosis, causality, and solutions. He argues that discussion circles that are “too external” will not advance society, and that tools for systematic thinking need to be taught already in schools and continued in academia. He adds that universities and their faculties also “work from the gut” and do not model argumentative thinking.

The Golan and Rabin example: two independent questions become two camps

Abraham describes a sign that said “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan,” and explains that it can be interpreted both as a substantive political-security question and as an ethical question of political mandate. He argues that two independent questions should have produced four groups within public opinion, but in practice only two groups appeared, because people first decided from the gut whether they were for or against the agreement and then recruited the moral question in the same direction.

The conversion example and the judge from Ashdod: the complexity of many questions disappears into two camps

Abraham describes a ruling by a rabbinical judge in Ashdod who invalidated conversions performed by the state conversion system on the grounds that there was no genuine acceptance of the commandments and that the judges in that system were “wicked,” and he recounts that the Supreme Rabbinical Court upheld it, causing a public uproar. He argues that after a while it became clear that the Haredim supported the ruling and the Religious Zionist camp opposed it, even though, in his words, there were “twelve independent questions” in the matter that should have produced “four thousand groups” of positions. Yet again, only two positions emerged, because the gut had decided in advance and the arguments served it. He notes that he himself thought some of the judge’s claims were correct regarding the problematic nature of the conversions, but he did not agree with sweeping invalidation nor with calling the judges “wicked,” and he emphasizes that the public discourse did not do the work of clarification and weighing.

Overload, emotion, and lack of mental space: the host’s claim and the response about responsibility

The host compares thinking to a psychological resource and argues that in times of pressure, war, and economic strain, people tend toward dichotomous certainty and are less capable of a process of doubt and inquiry. Abraham says the psychological question is not his area of expertise, but he argues that simply making the diagnosis is already the beginning of a solution, and that distress does not exempt a person from responsibility, because the lack of thinking is both produced by these hardships and also produces them.

The feedback loop: enlisting every aspect to one position turns the other side into “evil or stupid”

Abraham describes a mechanism in which every aspect of a discussion is perceived as supporting one’s own position, and therefore the other side necessarily appears to be either stupid or evil, which eliminates any desire to listen and increases frustration and violence. He argues that recognizing that both sides have arguments and different considerations returns the disagreement to a framework of persuasion and democratic mechanisms, and reduces the collapse of trust in institutions.

Facts as a substitute for arguments, fake news, and unconscious biases

The host argues that people, especially educated people, flood discussions with information instead of building a relevant argument, and Abraham agrees, saying that in “ninety to ninety-five percent” of cases, the facts that are brought are not relevant to the discussion. He gives examples of statistics about Black people in the United States, advancement of women, and Mizrahim on the Supreme Court, and explains that numbers in themselves are not an argument without examining variables and relevant candidacies. He adds that deliberate distortion of information is serious, but unconscious biases are even more dangerous because people are convinced they are fair while speaking nonsense. He illustrates this with the claim of political bias in academia, which can take the form of denying jobs to conservatives from a sincere belief that they are simply “idiots.”

The judicial reform, lack of trust, and the veil of ignorance

Abraham describes how, in the discourse about judicial reform, both camps are effectively saying that there are problems in the legal system, but they differ over whether the reform is excessive or necessary. He argues that both sides agree about “half a glass” but look at it differently. The host argues that the disagreement stems mainly from personal distrust of those leading the reform, and Abraham agrees that part of it is personal, but argues that this is not necessarily just “from the gut”; it can be a legitimate consideration when there is concern about unfair use of power. He criticizes an automatic application of the “veil of ignorance” in the style of Rawls, and argues that in practice the discussion also relates to the people themselves, and that examples from other countries are irrelevant without similar conditions of trust.

Practical exercise: stop, formulate an argument, and defend the opposing position

Abraham describes courses in critical thinking in which he gave a group an article that would “make their guts churn” and asked them to formulate the assumptions and the conclusion, and then formulate arguments in favor of the thesis. He says the exercise was difficult but created a habit of stopping, taking a deep breath, systematic analysis, and being able to write both a supporting talkback and an opposing talkback before deciding. He also suggests using friends from the other camp, people whose intelligence one respects, in order to test arguments, and admits that this is difficult for him too, and that conversation across camps requires “gritted teeth.”

Stereotypes, profiling, and “these and those”: legitimacy versus truth

Abraham recounts that at a march against live animal shipments people were surprised to see a “religious guy” marching, and he uses this to show how stereotypes may be statistically based yet create a self-reinforcing closed mindset. He cites the Talmudic text in Eruvin about Beit Hillel and Beit Shammai, and explains that according to Rabbi Yosef Karo, “these and those are the words of the living God” means that both positions are legitimate, but the truth is one, and the way to reach it is by first presenting the other side’s view and seriously weighing it. He distinguishes between profiling, which is sometimes necessary and statistically justified, and applying it to every individual without justification, and gives examples from opposition to Torah study for women, security checks in airports, and the integration of women into combat units, while arguing that one must weigh systemic cost against individual cases.

Silencing, digital media, and cautious optimism about change

The host argues that digital media and social networks intensify dichotomy, and cites research from the United States showing that breaking partisan identity down into specific events increased agreement. Abraham says it is possible to get people to listen and be persuaded through Sisyphean work, and that micro-level change by each person in their own small sphere may accumulate into macro-level change. He ends by saying that people are not only intellectual creatures, but they can “manage” their own psychology in order to allow argumentative thinking.

Conclusion and invitation to continue

The host sums up by saying she enjoyed the conversation and asks to save additional topics for future episodes, ending with an invitation to listen to episodes of the podcast “The Way of Thought” on the distribution channels. She suggests getting in touch for lectures on creative thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, and meditation, and mentions the contact address: office at shiranraz dot com.

Full Transcript

[Speaker A] Hello and welcome. Today we’re going to talk about one of the important, interesting, and fairly complicated and tangled topics, which is discourse, conversation, communication between us—on social media, yes, but also in private and family forums. To understand how we do this, what the problem is, and how to move forward on a practical level, I invited a special guest, one that you also asked for, one of the most brilliant minds in Israel today, Dr. and Rabbi Michael Abraham. He has a PhD in physics, and he also teaches at Bar-Ilan University. He deals with philosophy, science, and Jewish thought, and he’s also written over 30 books. So this is also a chance to tell you that if you haven’t joined our Telegram discussion channel—where it’s really possible to express yourselves in a good, proper, fruitful, enriching way—join now. So I wish you pleasant listening. Good morning to the rabbi and doctor, even though you hate titles, Michael Abraham. Good morning. Will you allow me to call you Miki during the conversation?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Absolutely, preferably.

[Speaker A] Excellent. So I don’t know if there’s any topic you can’t talk about—it was a little hard for me to choose a topic, so I got help from you too—and I also think it’s very important for people in general to understand one of, I think, the traps that leads to the anger and deep hatred between us, and that’s discourse. Anyone who goes online—I can tell you that sometimes I take detox days from the internet, detox days from media, detox days from communication. I even threw the television out of the house a year ago. So where do you want to start? What’s the first point from which we should talk about our shallow discourse?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Maybe as a framework, before getting into the analysis of the issue, I just want to focus the problem. I think that usually people focus the problem on anger, rudeness, hatred, lack of listening, and things like that. In my view, all of those are symptoms—that is, forms of expression, style, and so on. In my eyes all those are symptoms, and they’re not really important, they’re trivialities. As far as I’m concerned, let people curse me, revile me, insult me, hate me—it doesn’t bother me in the slightest. What those trivial things express is the truly important thing, and that is that people don’t listen to my arguments. Meaning, if you hate me and curse me and do whatever you want—but listen to my arguments, weigh them properly, and form a position—then hate me afterwards, before that, whatever you want. Speak rudely, mock me, call me a Nazi, everything’s fine. Those are not the points that bother me at all. It does interfere because if you do that, then it’s harder for the other side to respond substantively, so on the technical level it can interfere. But people constantly talk about the style of discourse and the aspects I mentioned here as if they are the essence of the problem, and that’s not it. That is absolutely not the essence of the problem. The problem, in my view, is that in the discourse between us there are no arguments. You don’t raise arguments, and you don’t listen to the arguments of the other side. It simply isn’t based on arguments; it’s based on the gut. Everyone speaks from their gut, and if they do raise some argument at all, they draft it in service of the conclusion that comes from their gut. So the arguments play no role in the discourse, and if I have to put my finger on the focal point of the problem—that’s the focal point of the problem.

[Speaker A] Okay, but here I think you’re going a few steps ahead, because it’s like saying: once you already have a driver’s license, then pay attention when the road is wet and you’re approaching a bus stop where children are getting off—maybe pay more attention. But the person went through a prior process: theory, driving test, lessons. And when someone can even come to a conversation at the level of understanding where they can present an argument—I think there may be an empty space there. Not every person is capable of coming and managing a real conversation. I mean, I think it goes beyond intention. That’s what I’m trying to say—where is the root where this begins? Because if I express an opinion that, by mistake in this period of the hostages, might sound to someone like I didn’t say “release the hostages now,” that’s it—everything shuts down right there.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Right. Look, I think I agree with you in principle, I just disagree about the order of things. Okay? Because I think the point I made is the diagnosis of the problem. What you’re talking about is the question of what caused this problem, and maybe also how to improve the situation or solve it. But I don’t think—I mean, let’s say I’m not trying right now to deal with digital media or the structure of the networks; I’m not the person for that. Even if I could do something about it, and even if I had well-formed ideas, which I don’t really, I still don’t think that’s the real diagnosis of the problem. That’s the world we live in, whether we like it or not. So in my view it’s important to pay attention to the influence of those aspects of our world on the problem. But when I make a diagnosis of the problem, I think the diagnosis is what I said before: people do not use arguments. That’s the Archimedean point. Now you can ask why they don’t use arguments, how to improve the situation, what to do about social media—but all of those are questions belonging to the next level. In my view this is the foundational level. First of all, this is the problematic fact. After that we can discuss what causes it.

[Speaker A] Okay, so let’s move forward with the first level, where you’re basically saying that people don’t use arguments. That’s a fact you can’t ignore. The discourse is very shallow, the discourse is very violent. I do think that the culture of discourse strongly affects the arguments as well, and emotions and feeling very much improve—or lock, or add to, or cut off—the ability to make arguments. Because in the end, you think we’re more rational people; I think we’re more emotional people. But we’ll get to that later in the conversation. So what do we do according to how you see it, aside from the fact that you’ve now thrown a bomb onto the table?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I don’t think it’s such a huge bomb. It seems to me that most people, if they stop and think for a moment, will agree—at least I think so. If only they listen to even that, because usually we don’t listen. But I think there are two main things. First of all, over the last two years, with all the disputes and polemics in our society, I’ve participated in quite a few meetings and dialogues with various groups, including leading figures in some of those groups. And somehow they always talked about how to moderate the discourse, how to make it more constructive, and so on. I told them that they were talking on too external a level. I think discussion circles in Rabin Square, sitting there in a tent and discussing baseless hatred in light of Jewish sources or Hindu sources, won’t take us anywhere. What’s needed is to accustom people, to clarify the importance, to accustom them and give them tools for systematic thinking, for thinking with arguments. Of course this has to begin in the schools. It has to continue in the universities, which also don’t provide those tools. Universities, including their faculties, are among the greatest people working from the gut. They are the last people to voice arguments in today’s discourse. Just yesterday I had a stormy argument in the Bar-Ilan faculty organization, where they announced a strike together with the Histadrut, and by the way I am sharply opposed to the government, but I think that was an outrage. It’s none of their business, and everyone is simply working from the gut. Now it’s pretty amazing when you think about professors—people who excel in their fields, right? Not stupid people, at least some of them. I don’t think every professor is a genius, but overall it’s an intelligent population. And you see—there’s nobody to talk to. You might as well talk to the wall. So I really think that the skill of systematic thinking, first of all, has to be taught; second, we shouldn’t think that someone with higher education has that skill, because usually they don’t. And the second thing is, of course, educating people to actually do it—not just giving them the tools, which provide a skill, but educating them to use it. Now that education, again, I don’t know how much influence I can have on the school system and certainly not on academic education, but I try, for example, on my website. My main goal there isn’t the content at all; my main goal is really the method. The method of how to take an issue and try to deal with it in an orderly way. And deliberately I always make sure—even though I genuinely think this way too—I always make sure to present both sides, even on an issue where I have a clear position. And many times people get angry and say to me, what do you mean, are you with us or against us? And to me that’s part of the very point I’m trying to address. And for some reason it doesn’t happen. So I think that in my own little corner of God’s world, I am trying a bit to advance this. If there are more people who do it, all the better. A global solution, other than some kind of change in the education system—and there too you would need to train teachers, the teachers themselves need to be moved into this mode of thinking and relating—I don’t know. But I can give a few examples or a few basic points that will both illustrate the issue and sharpen it, and help a person see where he himself falls into it.

[Speaker A] I’d be happy to hear that.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Let me give maybe an example, if I may. I once traveled on a bus—an example I’ve already used more than once—and this was during the Rabin government, sometime in the 1990s. And as usual, a discussion came up about whether to make an agreement with the Syrians and give them the Golan, and so on. I saw a car below through the window with a sign that said, “Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan.” Then I asked myself whether I could know anything about the views of the car owner. Right wing, left wing, for the agreement, against the agreement? The answer I gave myself was no. You can’t know. Why not? Because the statement that Rabin has no mandate to return the Golan can be interpreted on at least two levels. One level is the substantive one—political, security, ideological, religious, whatever—whether it is right to make such an agreement or not. That’s one question. But in the wording, “does Rabin have a mandate to return the Golan,” not whether he is doing the right thing, apparently that wasn’t the discussion. The discussion was an ethical question. Political ethics. A person who came to power—yes, who was elected on the basis of a certain agenda, presented it to the public, received the votes, and was elected prime minister. He comes into office and reaches different conclusions. “What you see from here you don’t see from there,” as a later prime minister said. So what should he do? Should he go back to the public and say, listen, I changed my mind, let’s hold elections on my new agenda, I’ll try to persuade you, and if I succeed then I’ve received the mandate again, and if not, choose what seems right to you? That’s one possibility. The second possibility says you can’t go back to the public on every issue. In the end, the person has a broader perspective, he was elected to be prime minister, he has information that many of us don’t, and he has to make decisions. He was given trust, and on that basis he should make the decisions. That’s a question in governing ethics; it has nothing whatsoever to do with what you think about an agreement with Syria or returning the Golan or not. It’s a completely independent question. Now in my view both of these are substantial questions. Neither has a simple answer. Not either one. There are two sides to each of them. How many groups would I expect to find in the population in this debate?

[Speaker A] For and against.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] For and against on two questions. Okay. Basic combinatorics says—but still—

[Speaker A] It could still be two groups. Just because there are two questions doesn’t necessarily mean it will split into more.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Four groups. Why? Two independent questions—it’s combinatorics. Okay. Two independent questions, each of which has two possible answers, should produce four groups in the population. One group says: Rabin has no moral mandate, although I’m in favor of this agreement. A second group says: he has a mandate and I’m in favor. He has no mandate and I’m against. He has a mandate and I’m against. Right? Four groups. Assuming the questions are independent, and assuming that each question really has meaningful arguments both ways. Those are my two assumptions. Okay, and I think that’s true. I could even try to persuade people that there are good arguments on both sides of each of the two questions. So there should have been four groups. How many were there in practice?

[Speaker A] Two groups.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Two, of course. Those who were against the agreement also said what Rabin was doing was immoral, and those who were in favor also said it was moral. The diagonal groups—I couldn’t locate them in the population. Maybe there were isolated individuals, but there wasn’t a group in the population saying, I’m against the agreement but he has a mandate, he was elected. Or the reverse: he has no mandate because that’s not what he was elected for, although I support the agreement. Those groups didn’t exist. Now in my eyes that is the clearest possible symptom of the problem I mentioned earlier. Why were there only those two groups? Because people are not willing to tie things to arguments. What people are really saying is: first of all, my gut tells me whether I’m for or against. And after I decide whether I’m for or against, I enlist all the arguments and all the levels of the discussion in the direction I wanted from the start. So if I’m against, then I say it’s also immoral, and it’s also forbidden politically and strategically, and whatever else you like. And if I’m in favor, then it’s also moral and so on. In other words, the arguments come after the gut has already spoken. The gut says where it should go, and then I enlist all the arguments in that direction. I don’t start from the arguments; I use the arguments. And that’s the root of the problem. Let me give you an even starker example.

[Speaker A] By the way, it’s interesting that you gave that example, because in the episode before you we expanded on exactly this topic of the Oslo Accords and talked about the evacuation of the Golan and what Rabin said about having changed his mind, so this connects directly to the previous episode.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Okay. Let me give you another example. Years ago there was some discussion that came up about conversion. There was a rabbinical judge in Ashdod, in the rabbinical court in Ashdod, who declared that all the conversions carried out by the state conversion system—at the time it was headed by Rabbi Druckman—were null and void. Why were they null and void? Because they did not truly require observance of the commandments; it was a kind of farce, a façade of commandment observance. And second, because of that, all the judges involved were wicked. Anyone who took part in the matter was wicked, and wicked judges, according to Jewish law, are unfit to judge, so there is no valid court, and a conversion is not valid without a court. That was his claim. It reached the Supreme Rabbinical Court, and they approved it. Then, of course, all hell broke loose and the debate was conducted at full force. And after the dust settled, the picture became very clear: all the Haredim were with him, and all the Religious Zionists were against him. Okay? In the end Rabbi Amar intervened there and changed the decision after all, but that was the picture. Now I sent a letter to Makor Rishon—usually I didn’t send letters there, but this was one of the few I did—and I said there: look, when I think about this issue for ten seconds, I don’t need to think longer than that, I answered there, I think, about twelve independent questions that you have to answer in order to form a position on this issue. Now when I say there are twelve independent questions, it’s the same assumptions as before: each question is independent of the others, and each has two serious sides. Now the combinatorics are a bit more complicated—there should be four thousand groups in the population. Groups, not four thousand people—four thousand different opinions. How many were there in the population? Two. Meaning there were those who answered yes to all twelve questions, and opposite them those who answered no to all twelve questions. That’s it. Where are the other 3,998 groups? Where did all the opinions disappear? And again, what happens? People decide whether they are for or against from the gut, and then enlist all levels of the discussion in the direction they prefer. Someone who thought he was against it because he was Haredi—so from his perspective he answered no to all the questions. Someone Religious Zionist who thought he was in favor—on all the questions he answered yes. Now I, as someone somewhat involved in rabbinic discourse and who also spoke with colleagues, quickly saw that in the real debate the matter was more complex. Regarding the twelve questions, many Religious Zionist rabbis, by the way, thought as I did—that the judge in Ashdod was right. I didn’t agree with him that the judges were wicked, and I don’t think it is right to invalidate all those conversions sweepingly, but I definitely think these were very problematic conversions; in my opinion many of them were not valid. And that’s that. I can explain it through the twelve questions, or more than that, clarify each one and ultimately reach the bottom line. But that didn’t happen in the public discourse. And again, why didn’t it happen? Because we do not build our positions on arguments. If we built our positions on arguments, then we would have had to say: look, Rabin does have a moral mandate, but I’m against it; or he doesn’t have a mandate, but I’m in favor. Now in the end you still need to weigh what matters more than what and reach the bottom line of what you actually think in the end. In the bottom line, I still have to be either for or against. But I arrive at that bottom line only after I go through all the aspects, form a position on each of them, and then try to weigh them or build from all of them some overall picture. That’s what almost nobody does. And on my website, at least, I try to take issues and do exactly that: to reach a position at the end, but to build that position only after trying to analyze the aspects, discuss each one as independently and as unbiasedly as I can. Sometimes that will take me here, sometimes there, and sometimes even during the discussion I’ll change my position from what my gut said at first glance—yes, I have a gut too, and not such a small one either. But I think if I have to put my finger on what the problem in Israel is today—it’s not the security problem, not the religious problem, not social solidarity, not anything else. The problem is this. The problem is that people do not think, and do not ground their positions in thinking at all.

[Speaker A] But look at what I’m hearing from what you said: basically, people naturally, when they hear some position or opinion or belief, work from the gut, and it’s comfortable for them to go to a dichotomous state of yes or no, black or white, and they don’t activate doubt in relation to that statement and begin some kind of internal inquiry process of for and against. Now that requires—thinking and inquiry require emotional, psychological, and intellectual resources. Not everyone is available for that. And I’ll give you the simplest example possible. When people are dieting—when you want to deal with not eating sweets—during a period when you’re more emotionally calm, you’ll be able to hold out and not pounce on sweets. During a period when you’re extremely stressed, you probably won’t be able to stay on the diet. What does that mean? That thinking, too, is a matter of availability, okay? So let’s assume, for the sake of argument, that the education system works properly. Let’s say parents raised their children well to make arguments. Let’s say that, okay? Obviously it doesn’t really work that way. When the country—I’m talking now about our small little patch, our little corner of God’s world, the State of Israel—most people spend many periods in states of war and pressure and very difficult situations, and people work very hard to pay a mortgage and chase, as they say, the shekel and make it to the tenth of the month. And basically you come with a request—sorry for using this word—that’s maybe a bit… I like saying the word chutzpah. Make an effort and think. But they don’t have the energy to think. So what do they do? They go to the easiest place, the gut. It’s the place of, okay, at least I can grab onto something certain. Human nature loves certainty; it has a hard time with uncertainty, even in thinking. So when we’re now talking, and those listening to us—okay?—you’re saying, listen, it makes no sense that one of the hardest problems in the State of Israel is that you don’t think. How do we actually put down the first milestone to help people like I described, for whom this is not their role and who don’t understand the importance, start rolling inward toward understanding the analysis of an argument? I mean, what’s the first milestone? What’s the first path they need to take, in your opinion?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you this. First of all, I completely agree. It’s like Maslow’s pyramid, you know—when a person is occupied with immediate distress, he doesn’t deal with big ideas and cool, systematic thinking about issues. But that question really ought to be directed to a psychologist, not to me. I’m not a psychologist, and I also don’t think a psychologist can really solve the problem, because I don’t think there’s some orderly top-down method, some general idea that will begin changing the situation. I do think that simply putting a finger on the point, clarifying the point, making the diagnosis I made earlier, is itself the beginning of a solution. Because even if people are in distress—look, people in distress also commit crimes, and we judge them for it. The fact that you’re in distress may be an argument for leniency in punishment, but it doesn’t exempt you from responsibility. And I claim the same in the public discourse. We all have our hardships, but we won’t emerge from them if we don’t learn to overcome this,

[Speaker A] To restrain ourselves.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And the lack of thinking is, first, a result of these hardships, but it also creates them. Let me show you, for example, a very interesting logical circle in this regard. When we think in the way I described earlier, then basically, in every issue, from our perspective, all the aspects lead in the direction I already think is right. Meaning I’m not willing to accept that aspects A, B, H, T, and Y are against me, and all the others are in my favor, and when I weigh them all I come out this way. No—every aspect from A to Z points in my direction. That it is forbidden to return the Golan, that the conversions are valid or not valid, even in things like that, or in our own issues and discussions. What happens in such a situation? What happens is that the other side thinks the same thing too. Now when I look at him, obviously he’s an idiot. Or evil. Because all the aspects say what I say. So if he says otherwise, he’s either an idiot or evil; there is no logical explanation for what he says. What happens as a result of that? As a result, it means there’s no point talking to him. There’s no point weighing his arguments, because he’s either an idiot or evil. Now you see what’s happening here—what’s called positive feedback. I assume that all the arguments point in my direction, and that itself builds that perception and sharpens my perception even more, because everyone else is an idiot and therefore their arguments are stupid. So I’m even more right, and therefore I listen even less, and then I’m also frustrated, and then I also go out into the streets and set tires on fire, in the best case. And I think there is tremendous contempt for the intellectual aspect of this process. We go too quickly to the sociological aspect, the emotional one, the distress, as you said earlier. So first of all I raise a red flag: don’t let yourselves off so easily. True, we all have hardships, but in some of them we are to blame. We are to blame for not being able to see that there really is a complex picture. If I see that the picture is complex, then even if I have one position or another about a hostage deal, someone else has a different position. I won’t agree with him, and I’ll go out to demonstrations, and I’ll fight for my position, and I’ll explain it, and I’ll demand that the government resign or not resign—each person according to his own view—but I’ll understand that the person standing opposite me also has a position. I don’t agree with it, and I think he is harmful, and it’s terrible, but I understand that he is not evil and not an idiot, and likewise he can understand the same about me. And then it seems to me that, with all the firmness—and I’m in favor of firmness—but, one moment,

[Speaker A] Miki, I didn’t hear you—you disappeared for a moment.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’m saying that I’m in favor of firmness. I’m a decisive person. But that firmness is firmness because I truly believe in my position, not because I think there is no other side, okay? Not because I can’t understand how the other side could possibly reach a different conclusion unless he’s evil or stupid. And today we all think that about one another—that the other side is either evil or stupid—and therefore the discussion cannot even be conducted on the level of arguments. So notice: we begin from this failure, where the gut speaks, emotion and feeling speak, arguments are recruited to serve emotion, and now how could emotion not dominate? After all, the other side is either evil or idiotic, so I have no reason to talk to him in terms of arguments. So this feeds back and entrenches me even further in the same position, and of course the same thing happens on the other side. And therefore, in my view, I’m not going in the psychological direction—not because it isn’t important, it is important, but because I have no control over it and no knowledge about it. And even those who do have that knowledge, in my opinion, won’t be able to deal with it. The hardships—I don’t know how to treat them. The hardships are objective. We are in a difficult situation here, and the disputes involve human life, they involve our fate here. The hardships will not disappear. All we can do is try to see how we live with them or manage them, and not allow them to take over our thinking. And if that happens, it seems to me that the hardships themselves will also lessen. They will lessen because I will understand that there is a disagreement here, and for disagreement there are democratic mechanisms, there are mechanisms of debate, there are mechanisms for how we manage discourse between us. Today there is no trust in the mechanisms, and that too is a result of the point I mentioned earlier. There is no trust in the mechanisms because you do not see the other side as legitimate. Now if he is not legitimate, then even if the mechanism does what it has the right and authority to do—so what? It is doing something suicidal, foolish, and evil. So I do not accept the rules of the game. Meaning, notice how this one seemingly detached and intellectual point radiates into all the most existential, most emotional, most difficult problems we have on the ground. And those problems, in my opinion, will not be solved on a psychologist’s couch and not in a discussion tent in Rabin Square. Where then? We begin first of all with a person’s self-education. How do you form a position within yourself? If you yourself see that there are sides here and there, and you form a position, and you have a position on one side—be firm, fight for it, everything’s fine. But if you do it that way, suddenly you see that the other side is not necessarily evil or idiotic. He has other considerations, and he weighs the considerations differently. And then you basically say: okay, then let’s try to persuade. Now I can’t just fight anymore—fighting won’t help. He has a position; he’s not evil or stupid. So let’s try to persuade, and maybe we’ll succeed and maybe not. If not, there are institutions, there are mechanisms for how to handle such conflicts. That’s how it should work. And in my view—maybe it sounds very simple—but I think it’s actually a very big novelty compared to what people think, because people attribute everything to sociology and psychology, while I claim that philosophy…

[Speaker A] Okay, but both philosophy and psychology are terribly subjective. Meaning, once again, you keep bringing it back—but wait, one second before we get to philosophy, what you said is important. I want to say something about the arguments you keep emphasizing all the time. And you pointed out that there are also many professors, academics, who are very smart and highly educated, and still they don’t know how to frame an argument properly. Now I can say, at least from my own experience, that I do work a great deal in accompanying very complex negotiations, and precisely where lawyers fail, I manage to close very complex and deep agreements, precisely because I do bring my ability to look at both sides and at the emotional aspects. But I want to add one more thing here; in my opinion this is another important aspect. A lot of people think that if they flood the other side with information, that itself is the argument. I’ll explain what I mean. And this is kind of a problem with educated people—sometimes they’re even harder to argue with. I can say that I had some kind of—I called it a discussion, she probably called it an argument—about some issue. I argued that what happened with the media, the upheaval in the media in recent years, brought various good things also to the right side, not only to the left side of the political map. And what happened in that discussion was that she flooded me with endless information about almost everything that was in her head. It felt like she was just hurling whole pages of information at me, but none of it was relevant to what we were talking about. Now she felt very smart, she felt very victorious, and she felt that I was very stupid, because I didn’t understand all the information, I wasn’t addressing the huge amount of information she was pouring onto me. And here I think we need to sharpen the point: the fact that a person has a lot of knowledge still doesn’t mean they are making the argument in the right way. And from what I hear from you, when you make an argument, the most important thing is: stop for a second and take into your basket what the other person is saying, look at it, look at their statement, and respond accordingly—not with something you just dump into their basket from whatever you happen to have in your head.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I’ll tell you more than that—I even wrote about this once. When I hear arguments that use facts, and I can’t assess it quantitatively, but in ninety, ninety-five percent of cases, the facts are irrelevant to the discussion. And people use them exactly as you said, absolutely right—people use facts as a substitute for arguments. And that’s part of the same problem, because people don’t think. If you were thinking in terms of arguments—what’s going on here, what’s the relevance of these facts—you’d understand that these facts are irrelevant. But you’re not thinking. Still, there has to be some kind of façade of an argument, so you bring numbers. There are such-and-such percentages that are this and that. So what? What does that even mean? Let’s take a far-out example: Black people in America. People bring percentages of police harassment of Black people. But the question is: in how many cases are Black people involved in crimes that justify—or at least partially justify—such a violent response? I don’t know, I haven’t checked. But you need to check that before you bring the percentages. Or women—advancement of women in various places. You need to check how many qualified women there are. It’s not Torah from Sinai that the number of qualified women is always equal to the number of qualified men, and sometimes for very good reasons—and often not their fault, that’s beside the point—but that’s the current situation. People talked about Mizrahim on the Supreme Court. So with all due respect to Mizrahim, it seems to me that at least until recent years there really were fewer suitable candidates from the Mizrahi public. In large part because of the fault of society as a whole, that’s not the issue. But you can’t bring me numbers of how many Mizrahim there are on the Supreme Court and leave it at that as an argument. If you showed me, I don’t know, some statistic or even brought enough examples of people who could meet the standards and nevertheless weren’t accepted for irrelevant reasons, then that becomes an argument. The number in itself is not an argument. So I completely agree with what you’re saying. That’s why I intentionally talk about arguments and not about facts. Very often the arguments, by the way, are a matter of intellect, not of knowledge, not of familiarity or education. Education often gives you lots of facts. Sometimes it’s also supposed to give you thinking skills, but the thinking skill is what I’m talking about here, not the facts. On the contrary, as you said, facts often disrupt the discourse rather than advance it.

[Speaker A] Because there’s also a lot of fake news today, and a lot of information too—even facts are fabricated.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Not only facts, absolutely right.

[Speaker A] And I can tell you that this is one of the things—the deliberate slanting of information, where they cut only parts out of a conversation in order to make an argument based on the fact that they took only the parts that seemed right to them. So I very much know—

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] That happens very often unintentionally. And when it happens deliberately, then it’s a scheme. You have to try to catch it and expose it. The problem, in my view, is when it happens unintentionally—and I think in most cases that’s the situation—that’s much worse. Because the person is convinced that they are honest and authentic and fair and making substantive arguments, and they’re simply talking nonsense. And it’s very hard to deal with that. I’ll give you another example that illustrates the same point. In academia there is a very large majority in the liberal direction. Toward what is today called the left, even though liberalism was originally right-wing. But there is a very clear direction—I don’t know—against the government, against Bibi, call it whatever slogans you want. I see it. I mentioned the discussion I had yesterday with our faculty organization—even at Bar-Ilan, which supposedly has a different image, it’s no different from other universities.

[Speaker A] I interviewed Amir Amihood, I think he’s also from your place, and he said it’s completely biased.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Amihood Amir, yes, right. Sorry, right. So that is the situation. The point is that when, say, they come to judge a faculty member, and you want to know whether to give him a position or not, give him tenure, give him rank, or not—now, when they see a person with a conservative worldview, in their eyes he’s an idiot. Or evil, or an idiot. And now, sincerely and innocently, they won’t give him a position—they don’t want idiots in the department. In an academic department you don’t want an idiotic faculty member. As a result, people don’t get positions because of their worldview, but it happens innocently. It’s not a scheme in a large part of the cases. Truly and sincerely they see him as unintelligent, and therefore they won’t accept him. And that’s part of the same problem: when this stance is not intentional, not malicious, when this failure doesn’t happen deliberately but innocently, it’s much more dangerous and much worse. Much harder to deal with.

[Speaker A] It’s like saying racism is innocent, antisemitism is innocent.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] But sometimes it really is innocent. Someone who truly, sincerely thinks that the Jews want to destroy the world or kill him or whatever—how will you deal with that? If a person doesn’t think that and is just inciting with those claims against the Jews because he’s antisemitic and wants to kill them, it’s relatively easier to deal with. Expose the lies, and maybe part of the public will still understand, will still cling to the truth. But if it’s done innocently—how will you convince someone? What do you mean, the Jews really do want to kill us, it’s not that we’re antisemitic or anything. Innocent failures are much harder to deal with. And what many people don’t understand is that most failures in our discourse and in our conduct are innocent. People genuinely are convinced that the other side is evil and stupid and that all the points are on their side. You know, I’ll give you an example that I mentioned in passing: the judicial reform, of blessed memory. Before the war started we still had other wars here; now it’s maybe coming back a bit.

[Speaker A] In any case, I’m just wondering—I say, I wonder whether Sinwar started the war because of the change to the reasonableness standard. Okay.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] So if you ask the black-and-white people, then definitely yes or definitely no. In any case, the argument about the reform caught my eye, because there were two kinds of ads in the press. Artists, academics, whoever. There were ads against the reform: it’s a scandal, it’s the destruction of democracy, or I don’t know exactly what. There were ads in favor of the reform: the reform is necessary, the court is taking over, various things of that kind. By the way, full disclosure: I am against the reform in principle, but I’ll qualify that in a moment. Now what happens? They asked—I heard interviews, with my own ears; some of the people I spoke to personally, or I heard media interviews—those who say they are against the reform, what do they say? They say, look, there are flaws, the court sometimes exceeds its authority, true. Someone perceptive, not just a fanatic, understands that there are problems, there are problems. But this reform is crazy, it’s excessive, it must not be done. That’s the side opposing the reform. Those who support the reform say: look, true, we went too far, but change is needed. The legal system requires a major overhaul. Now if you analyze just those two statements, you understand that they’re saying the same thing.

[Speaker A] Absolutely. By the way, I had lots of conversations with people from both sides and it was so funny.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, not just that. More than that: they’re both saying the same thing. The question is whether you’re looking at the half-full glass or the half-empty glass. Both say there is a half glass. Those against the reform look at the half-full glass, and those in favor of the reform look at the half-empty glass, but both agree there is a half glass. Now I have no problem with that, by the way, because it illustrates what I said earlier. I can say, listen, I’m against the reform even though it has sides in its favor, because the downsides outweigh them. You can say the opposite. But you can’t say there are no sides in its favor or against it. The moment you say there are no sides in its favor or against it, then once again the other side is either evil or stupid. And then all that’s left is to fight. You can’t—then of course you’re also unwilling to give even a hearing to someone who would make any argument against your position. By the way, this goes both ways. Both ways. In my opinion no one here excels more than the other in this matter.

[Speaker A] I don’t entirely agree about that. I actually think that on the issue of the reform, both sides want reform—at least from the conversations I had. No, I’m disconnecting from the media; I mean conversations I had with a great many people from both sides. Everyone understands that reform is needed. In the end, what it came down to was that they don’t trust the people passing the reform. Meaning, if it were someone else—and by the way there’s enough documentation and evidence for this—that people from the side they like said the same things and they accepted it, while the same things said by someone they don’t accept, they rejected. So I actually do think it’s very personal, and that brings us back to the gut.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I agree—agree for a moment on the personal aspect. I’m only arguing, first, that that’s not the whole story. Meaning, there is also a different weighing of the sides here. Second—and this is the last sentence you said, with which I disagree—the fact that it’s personal doesn’t mean it comes from the gut. For example, if I don’t trust Rothman and Yariv Levin, then I truly don’t want them passing laws here. And that’s not from the gut. Again, regardless of whether I personally trust them or not. I mean, if someone truly and sincerely thinks these are people who will cause problems with this, will do it for bad purposes or in crooked ways of one kind or another, then I can understand why personally he doesn’t accept it. I wrote a post on my website in principle about the veil of ignorance. We’re used to it—Rawls trained us to think that when we formulate a system of government, a moral outlook, and so on, we’re supposed to do it behind a veil of ignorance. Meaning to ignore the people and their opinions that are involved. You’re supposed to ask what is right in such a situation assuming these are anonymous figures, like in the military. Meaning these aren’t people at all. Okay? I disagree with that. I agree that basic fairness should have been that. But if—and again, maybe I’m mistaken—but if I truly think there are people here who will do these things in a self-interested, tendentious, unfair way, or in all sorts of such ways, and again from both sides of the divide, I’m not even getting into which side I’m talking about right now, then it is legitimate to say that I’m not willing for them to do it even if behind a veil of ignorance it would be proper to do it. The same thing, by the way, when people bring examples from around the world of various legislative systems or legal systems or governmental systems. How many countries in the world have a reasonableness standard, I don’t know. The examples are so irrelevant, because the discussions are not behind a veil of ignorance. If you bring me something from Finland, where there may be great public trust—I don’t know—in the government, then fine, maybe there too I would agree. But here I have no trust. Or I do have trust, it doesn’t matter, each side and its own side. So those examples always assume the veil of ignorance. They say: I’m not supposed to consider the specific people involved, I need to see whether this is right or not. But that is a big mistake. Today’s discussion is specifically a discussion about the person himself. And in that sense I have no criticism. I have no criticism; it doesn’t come from the gut. People truly don’t believe Bibi, for example. They don’t believe him. Now you may disagree or agree, but they truly don’t believe him. What do you want them to do?

[Speaker A] But they—but the fact that they don’t believe him personally, let’s take Bibi as an example, regardless of whether we’re for or against, let’s just use it as an example. You say they genuinely don’t believe him. But what is belief? Belief is thought, but it’s also emotion. Meaning, once you fuel a person on the level of thought and on the level of information, in the end he becomes so emotional about the event that he locks up. So there’s something here—so when I have no trust in this or that politician, I can’t just come and say yes, he thinks that way. He thinks that way because there was a prior process that led to that thinking and also made him very emotional about it.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] No, I agree, I completely agree with what you’re saying, but that’s an argument on a different plane.

[Speaker A] When I argue—to think of a person only as a rational creature, especially on opinions this complex, I think that harms understanding, at least the way I see people. A person is not only a thinking creature, okay? So if you hate someone and don’t trust him, then obviously there is also an emotional blockage involved, perhaps even a spiritual one, okay? So fine, you don’t believe him, you don’t believe him. But in order to dismantle that blockage, you need to bring rational arguments, and then maybe you can release it. You can’t just say okay, you don’t believe him, you don’t believe him. Maybe you can release it if you’re emotionally open enough to listen to reasonable arguments. That’s what I’m trying to say.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And that’s exactly—you just completed the sentence I said, that you’re taking us back. It’s not a criticism; you’re taking us back to what we were talking about earlier. What I was talking about earlier was the question of how human beings form positions. And there I made my critique. I said people come from the gut and so on, and certainly today distrust is being fueled. I completely agree, although I also don’t have much trust in Bibi. No, Bibi is just an example, I only took him as an example. Right, but I try to do it in a balanced way and see where I’m being sold nonsense and where a distorted, tendentious picture is being presented to me and where it isn’t, as much as I can. But that is a discussion about how I formed my positions. Now let’s say I solved that problem, fine? I now relate critically to all the facts and all the arguments, and in the end I formed a position and reached the conclusion that X is self-interested, can’t be believed, and can’t be trusted at all. There are such people. Yes, obviously, absolutely. Now you understand that I can’t relate to him behind a veil of ignorance. Yes. That argument remains valid despite what you’re saying. What you’re saying is only: note that even if you don’t believe him, you may not be right. It may itself be the product of biases, of tendentiousness, of crooked and biased discourse. With all that I completely agree. That’s the first part of the discussion. But after we’ve crossed that, I only wanted to comment: relating to the person himself is a relevant form of relating; it does not necessarily come from the gut. Not necessarily. It can also come from the gut, but not necessarily. And therefore I do not dismiss personal statements. I often don’t agree with them. By the way, I also don’t think there are all that many villains who are villains through and through, on either side. I truly tend to think that people really do what they think is right. With interests—we are all self-interested too—but a person is not… I don’t think, for all my revulsion toward Bibi—here we are back to him again, you can’t escape him—I don’t think he is sacrificing the lives of hostages because of, I don’t know what. I don’t think so. Absolutely not. And I haven’t seen any evidence that he is. And I don’t think any of the protesters have seen such evidence either. But they hold a very firm position. Now in that sense I really do agree—they fuel it, they feed on one-sided, colored information, there is confirmation bias, yes, where you always take what supports your position and ignore what doesn’t support it. So I completely agree. But we can’t ignore the fact that at the end of the day we are human beings, and as you said, not only are we human as judges, but also the figures being judged—they too are human beings. And since they too are human beings, I can’t relate only to their positions; I also have to relate to their personality and their way of conducting themselves. Therefore personal criticisms are legitimate; they are not criticisms that necessarily come from the gut. And in that sense I think that’s a point we have to take into account.

[Speaker A] Absolutely. You know, for me personally, every time I feel I’m being absolute, I stop myself. I say, okay, if you’re becoming absolute, examine yourself, because absolutism can also bring a lot of bad things. Now, for example, with people—I’m also in various other groups because I volunteer a lot in animal rescue and everything related also to—I don’t know, plants, I love them very much. And I say, how can it be that the same person that if I meet him in a political field there might be disagreement and a clash there to the bitter end—just kidding—but in other areas we have insane chemistry between us. And that reminds me that there is no person—unless, God forbid, there was something extreme—there is no person who is absolute evil, and maybe there is something in him that can teach me something. But here too, again I’m returning to the psychological and emotional place because that’s the place that is more comfortable for me. But you really do need a great deal of openness for these things. But I want to ask you a question that’s a bit practical, and maybe there isn’t really an answer. Let’s take it more into our everyday life. If, for example, someone comes across all sorts of opinions scattered across the internet and he wants to respond—what would you suggest he do before he responds? I mean, yes, of course, investigate and check and—but in a rational, logical, practical sense, what is the first thing we need to do when we see a post that annoys us?

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] I taught courses on critical thinking.

[Speaker A] Do you know one of the requests my listeners had for you? They said, ask him a personal favor—he writes these very long articles, and we don’t always have time—ask him to make summaries.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] A lot of people have asked me that. In those courses, one of the first exercises I gave—I taught this, say, to a group of Haredim at Ono Academic College. So first of all I brought them an article that would outrage them to the core, and I told them: I want you to formulate it as a structured argument—what are the premises and what is the conclusion—and after that present all the arguments you have in favor of its thesis. In favor of the thesis. Now that was as hard for them as the splitting of the Red Sea. For all of us. As hard as the splitting of the Red Sea. But after a few exercises like that we got used to it. And it was fascinating to see that suddenly people got used to not working from the gut. Meaning, when they read an article, I trained them—article after article after article—they would suddenly formulate for themselves: what are his premises, what is his conclusion, does the conclusion follow from the premise, could one assume other premises, what is the basis for his premises, do I have something against the conclusion, if so then what, and how does that fit with the fact that his argument nevertheless leads to the conclusion, and things of that sort. And people get used to it. The gut is still there in all of us, but they get used to sublimating it. Meaning, to say: okay, the gut said this—let’s stop for a second, take a deep breath, let’s try to write an article in his favor. Let’s try to write a talkback in his favor. What would I write? And afterward a talkback against him, and then in the end weigh it all and say, so what do I nevertheless think? Just as an example exercise. Or if you have friends who belong to another camp in this context, try it on them. Ask him what he thinks. Here, there’s such-and-such an argument—a person you respect. And here and there there are still such people, although somehow we’re beginning to drift apart a bit; ideology is also beginning to affect friendships and the social milieu. But still, I hope we each still have here and there some friends from the other side whom we respect. Test it on him. It’s very hard. I have a very good friend, a childhood friend, who is a very smart person. I value him greatly, and I think the feeling is mutual. A secular leftist, strongly active. We speak with clenched teeth, working hard on the discourse between us, and we don’t always succeed—not really. It’s very hard. And I’m someone who talks about this all the time and is skilled in it, and it’s very hard. But I don’t see any other way. You know, it reminds me—you mentioned earlier the struggle for animal rights. It reminds me that my daughter was very involved in that. And at some point I became a vegetarian, to my shame. I’m not strong enough to be vegan, unfortunately, although I think one should be. I don’t like grains; I can’t eat that.

[Speaker A] Yes, it’s not a simple transition. I say it has to be gradual; you can’t do it all at once.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In any case, I’ve been stuck on vegetarianism for quite a while—vegetarianism plus a little bit, but vegetarianism. And once I was at a march against live shipments in Tel Aviv. I went with her, I heard the horrifying descriptions, never mind, I was there, the horrifying sights. I’m walking there with my daughter, and one of the organizers comes up to me. She says, tell me, are you with us? I said yes, can’t you see I’m marching with you? She looked—I apparently didn’t look like I belonged in that landscape, kind of some religious guy with a beard and a black kippah and tzitzit. Not that she was against it, she was—

[Speaker A] Surprised, surprised.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Yes, she meant it positively. But notice the stereotypes. And now notice another important point: stereotypes are usually not something absurd. You won’t find many religious Orthodox people in those movements. Meaning, it’s not that she hallucinated this stereotype from the depths of her heart—it’s based on something. It doesn’t always hold; people are still varied, and there are large groups of one kind or another, but stereotypes are based on reality. But here is an example of something that didn’t fit her screen. Why didn’t it fit her screen? Why shouldn’t religious right-wing people—I don’t know exactly what to call that camp—be against such abuse of animals? I see no reason. By the way, there are quite a few such people who also won’t go there because of that characterization. They won’t go because it would supposedly strengthen the power of the left, or of the I-don’t-know-exactly-what groups that are not us. Which is absurd. It’s a self-reinforcing picture: we assume it, and that assumption reinforces itself, and it becomes stronger and stronger, and we can’t get out of this vicious circle into which we’ve put ourselves.

[Speaker A] But you know, what you’re saying is interesting, because for many years there was a perception that people on the right aren’t really connected to veganism and animal welfare, and precisely in recent years veganism and everything related to animal rescue has also connected with people who are traditional. And people ask them many questions—so what fish do you put on the table on Friday night, and all sorts of things that are customs drawn from Judaism. And there has actually been a very, very big change on the right too. Meaning, it’s no longer a label stuck only onto the liberal-left side. For example, I was very surprised by the whole issue of live shipments, where Israel is leading in these horrors. I couldn’t believe that Israel—I read the data, I was shocked. And I was even more shocked that the ones leading it are the Dabah family from Nazareth together with Shas. And I say, what—a religious party, leave aside for a moment that everyone probably has the association of Shas, thieves and all that—but a religious party is encouraging this horrible thing. So you are constantly challenging your thinking against what you believe. But I think that—I do think labels about people, true, as you said sometimes there is something to them, it’s not for nothing. But even here we’re putting up a barrier, as you said: the moment we put on the label, we don’t allow that blockage to go out and flow inward to society as a whole and to other things. So that too works against us.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] The Talmud says in tractate Eruvin that there was a dispute, a long years-long dispute, between Beit Shammai and Beit Hillel, and they could not decide it until a heavenly voice came forth and said: “Both these and those are the words of the living God, but the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel.” Now, the Talmud explains why: because Beit Hillel were gentle and humble, and they stated the words of Beit Shammai before their own. Before they formed a position, they first gave precedence to the words of Beit Shammai; they were polite and so on. Usually people tend to read this Talmudic passage in a pluralistic direction: there is a multiplicity of opinions, “both these and those are the words of the living God.” And then the question arises: so in what sense does the Jewish law follow Beit Hillel? If everyone is right, then why does the Jewish law follow Beit Hillel? A prize for good behavior. Meaning, if from the standpoint of the law everyone is right, and you still need to decide something, there’s no way to decide based on who is right because both are right. So let’s gain an educational benefit—since they behaved nicely, let’s educate the public to behave nicely. But Rabbi Yosef Karo, the one who wrote the Shulchan Arukh, has a book called Rules of the Talmud, and there he explains it differently. He says “both these and those are the words of the living God” is not saying both are right. I’m elaborating more; he says it in one sentence. It means both are legitimate, not that both are right. But only one is right—only Beit Hillel. And when the Talmud says that the Jewish law follows Beit Hillel because they were humble and put the words of Beit Shammai before their own, that is not a prize for good behavior. Rather, that is the way to arrive at the correct position. The way to arrive at the correct position is that if you take the other side’s position, weigh it seriously, listen properly, and only afterward formulate your own position, then it’s not that you’re a good, polite, nice person—it’s that you get closer to the truth, because that is the correct way to formulate a position. And therefore, even though stereotypes—as you said earlier, and I also said earlier—are often correct. Meaning, very often the stereotype is based on a phenomenon that is statistically true. But clinging to the stereotype is something very problematic and very harmful. Very often someone is accused of stereotyping, accused because he applies a stereotype to a group of people—but that’s not right; the stereotype may be right. The problem in stereotyping, or racism, or all their cousins, is when you take the stereotype, which may be correct in itself, and apply it to each and every individual in that group, instead of listening to the fact that there may also be a person who thinks differently from within that very group. Or, heaven forbid, maybe even the stereotype is right—meaning maybe actually you’re the one who’s mistaken, and everything all those people think—the religious people, the leftists, the right-wingers, whatever—maybe it also has truth to it, or at least sides that are true. Our rigidity is something different from coloring, from profiling. When we do profiling, it is fine in principle; you can’t think without profiling. We have profiling about different groups, and that profiling is statistically justified. Very often—sometimes not, but very often—it is statistically justified. That is not the problem with profiling. The problem with profiling is when I take that statistically justified thing and apply it to an individual person when there is no justification for it. When there is justification, that is something else. For example, security checks at the airport. People ask, why are you discriminating against Arabs? I discriminate against Arabs because I have never seen a Jew plant an explosive device or want to hijack a plane. That’s all; it’s a statistical fact. Now you can say, fine, then check everyone in the name of equality. You can’t check everyone. As it is, today that’s basically what they do, and we see what trouble that causes us. And for a long time they didn’t do that, because it really wasn’t justified. We don’t have time for that, and therefore it’s legitimate to go with a group that is painted with some stereotype, and even an innocent person should understand that he belongs to a group for which the stereotype is justified. Therefore it is perfectly fine; one should work that way. By the way, the same with women in combat units and all kinds of conservative things of that sort, which I do not reject at all. I do not reject opposition to women in combat units. I am very much in favor of equality wherever possible, but I am not willing to accept this silencing and these stereotypical cries that automatically everything has to be the same. No. And if there is a particular woman who is suited, then with all the reservations, open it up for her. No, not always is that right. Because for two women it is not necessarily worth reorganizing all of the IDF’s systems. Look at what they are doing today—not for two women, but for a huge number of Haredim—how hard it is for the IDF to adapt itself, and I very much want it to adapt itself. And how hard it is for the IDF to adapt its systems in order to absorb a huge number of soldiers that we lack. So to make all those changes because of two women who passed pilot screening tests or want to go to Sayeret Matkal—that, I don’t know, I’m not expert in the details. Maybe it’s fine and they did it, all well and good. But if it is difficult to do, I accept that argument, and it is not because of profiling.

[Speaker A] Yes. By the way, this is a topic we discussed here in several episodes, not just one. And even people—I spoke about it with Avigdor Kahalani and with various other people who came with a security background, and they also said: we have no problem with girls enlisting. We have a problem with the fact that they make accommodations that in the end harm the entire unit, or the entire group, or the overall fitness of the IDF. That was roughly the almost sweeping answer from everyone.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] And an equally great problem is that you’re not allowed to expose the difficulties in this matter. Yes. You’re not allowed to say it, to raise it—they won’t give a hearing to anyone who raises arguments showing why this thing is problematic. And I say, this silencing—again, it’s the same thing of evil and stupid versus right and enlightened, and the unwillingness to listen, by the way, on both sides. Meaning, those who oppose integrating women also don’t really listen to the arguments in favor of integrating women. There are arguments, and there are places where yes and places where no. Every case needs to be examined. But with us, everything is painted so black and white that it’s madness; you can’t conduct a discussion like that.

[Speaker A] I do think, by the way, that digital media and social media and technology really helped this dichotomy exist. And I want to tell you that what you said earlier was interesting—about how you convinced your students, or I don’t remember if it was a group, to read things they emotionally disagree with and start developing arguments in favor—sorry, arguments in favor. They did a study in the United States and took two groups, Democrats and Republicans, and they say it’s very hard—the basic assumption is that you can hardly change political opinions. We love our political opinions very much, we form them, and we’re zealous about them. Then they did this thing where they didn’t say which side thought what, but instead took specific events, and then they saw how suddenly they agreed with the other side. Meaning, once they stripped away the person connected to that party and the name, suddenly there was much broader agreement, and some were even persuaded. So that’s just a continuation of everything we talked about regarding personas and prejudices.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] In that sense, I see people much more optimistically than is customary. I do think it’s possible to get people to listen and be persuaded. Absolutely. Even though many times it doesn’t happen one-on-one in—through Sisyphean labor it can happen. And many times it fails, but little by little, I do think it can happen. And people very often, as you said at the beginning, often take me to the plane of—yes, there are psychological barriers and this isn’t on the intellectual plane at all, you see people as intellectual creatures. I don’t. I’m aware of the reality that people are not only on the intellectual plane; I too, unfortunately, am a human being and not only there. But I try to work on that, and I try to manage it in a way that won’t interfere with my making decisions and forming positions. And in that sense I think people can do it. Not get rid of their psychology, but manage it. And in that sense I’m more optimistic. It’s hard to influence the macro level, but if each person on the micro level tries to do something, maybe in the end it will still make a difference.

[Speaker A] Everyone in their own little corner of God’s world should start making the change, and from there we’ll move forward. Rabbi and Dr. Michael Abraham, it was a pleasure speaking with you. I have another million questions and topics, but we’ll save that for other episodes, since your time is limited. So thank you for your time. And hopefully we’ll take from here the ability to make arguments. Thank you.

[Rabbi Michael Abraham] Bye, goodbye. This was another episode of The Way of Thinking.

[Speaker A] All the episodes are available on the podcast apps, on the YouTube channel, and on Facebook. If you still haven’t joined, now is the time. For lectures on creative thinking, innovation, entrepreneurship, strategy, and meditation, you’re welcome to contact me directly at office@shiranraz.com. I’m Shiran Raz, and I’ll be with you in the next episode as well.

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