Rabbi Dr. Michael Avraham on a Complex Perspective and Harmony – Cila Ganot

Table of Contents

• [0:12] Introduction: Einstein and the separation of science and religion
• [2:11] Ways of dealing with conflict
• [4:06] Background to the logic of complexity
• [8:28] The question of causality according to Steinsaltz
• [10:55] A double explanation for the same event — psychological and philosophical
• [15:26] A halakhic / of Jewish law doubt: unrealized betrothal
• [24:36] Probability and fuzzy logic — the heap paradox

Summary

General Overview

The speaker rejects the claim that there is a necessary connection or required harmony between science, religion, and morality, and argues that they belong to different conceptual fields: science deals with facts and theories, morality with ethical norms, and Judaism mainly with religious norms. He says that conflict between fields does not require harmonization, and that one can simultaneously hold positions that seem to clash without turning them into a logical contradiction. He distinguishes between contradiction and practical conflict, and presents conceptual tools from Jewish law and from logics of vagueness in order to explain how one lives with tensions between different systems and what one does when they point to different practical decisions.

The principle of separating science, religion, and morality, and the attitude toward conflict

The speaker says that the initial connotation surrounding religion and science is one of conflict that leads to apologetics and harmonization, and he argues that conflicts do not always need harmonization. He lays out four possibilities in the face of conflicting theses: choose one, choose the other, harmonize them, or remain with both without harmony. He formulates the thesis that religion, science, and morality should remain parallel and separate domains, and that it is possible to hold all three even when apparent contradictions arise between them, without resolving them.

The logic of complexity: parallel planes of explanation

The speaker uses the story “The Happy Prince” by Oscar Wilde to show that the same event can receive two parallel explanations, psychological and physical, without forcing an immediate choice. He asks why the statue’s “lead heart” broke: because of grief over the swallow/sparrow’s death, or because of changes in temperature, and answers, “both,” depending on the plane from which you are looking. He adds a parenthetical remark about causality in the name of Steinsaltz and about the requirement that a cause be a sufficient condition, and argues that if each of the explanations is treated as a complete explanation, a nearly contradictory problem arises that requires further analysis.

Psychology versus philosophy in interpreting human decisions

The speaker describes becoming religious and leaving religion as examples of how people interpret the same step either on a psychological plane or on a philosophical plane, depending on what is convenient for them. He says that secular people tend to see becoming religious as the result of a crisis and leaving religion as a philosophical insight, while religious people tend to reverse those patterns. He argues that both planes are true together, because people have both psychological motives and a capacity for decision that is not deterministic, and therefore both can be given space simultaneously.

Newton and the apple: the need for an additional explanation, not the rejection of a religious explanation

The speaker asks why Newton looked for a physical explanation for a falling apple and did not settle for a possible theological explanation, and suggests that the reason was not disbelief but dissatisfaction with the theological explanation alone. He presents this as an illustration that people hold more than one explanatory plane regarding the same event. Later, when asked about facts versus facts, he says that on the factual plane only one side is right, and therefore in the case of the falling apple he would accept gravitational force as the factual explanation.

Doubt versus vagueness in Jewish law: Rabbi Shimon Shkop and betrothal that cannot be consummated

The speaker brings, in the name of Rabbi Shimon Shkop (Sha’arei Yosher), the case of a man who says to a father, “Behold, one of your daughters is betrothed to me,” and explains that this is called “betrothal that cannot be consummated,” because the betrothal cannot be realized without risking forbidden sexual relations. He argues that the label “doubt” is misleading, and distinguishes between doubt as lack of information and a situation in which there is no single defined “truth,” which he calls “vagueness.” He says that in the vague case there is no specific woman who is “the truth,” and that even “if you asked the Holy One, blessed be He Himself, even He would not be able to point” to which one is betrothed, and therefore this is a case of a “thin marital bond” in which “each of the two is my wife” with weak intensity. He notes that this distinction also explains why one must be stringent even according to Maimonides in such a case, because the discussion is not about the legal rules of doubt but about the status of an ambiguous reality.

Probability, fuzzy logic, and the heap paradox

The speaker states that in problems of missing information one uses the tools of probability and statistics, in which there is one truth but we do not yet have the information about it. He says that in problems of ambiguous reality one uses, in principle, “fuzzy logic,” in which truths are not “one or zero” but rather “true to a certain degree.” He illustrates this through the “heap paradox” and proposes giving up the assumption that adding one stone does not change the status, and instead understanding that “heap” is a continuous concept of degrees of heap-ness rather than a sharp numerical boundary.

Religion-science dilemmas as a classification error: doubt במקום vagueness

The speaker says that many people perceive the dilemmas between religion and science as dilemmas of the type of doubt, in which “one is right and the other is wrong,” and therefore religious people and atheists agree that “you have to choose,” differing only over who. He argues that such dilemmas arise only for someone seriously committed to both “toolboxes,” and that one need not see them as a temporary state whose purpose is to choose sides, but as a state in which one can remain. He gives as an example the question, “Either the world has existed for six thousand years or it has existed for 15 billion years,” as a case that illustrates the tendency toward forced choice.

Chocolate: distinguishing between contradiction and normative conflict

The speaker presents an argument over whether to eat chocolate: “it’s tasty” versus “it makes you fat,” and states that both are correct, and that this is not a logical contradiction but a practical conflict over what to do. He defines contradiction as a situation in which accepting X rules out Y, and distinguishes that from conflict, in which two facts/considerations are both correct but lead to different practical decisions. He uses this example to argue that in the relationship between religion, science, and ethics we are usually dealing with three foreign conceptual spheres, so there is no contradiction between their statements but at most conflicts at the decision stage.

Religion and morality: the beautiful captive woman, and the possibility of saying “permitted by Jewish law, morally forbidden”

The speaker refers to the uproar over Eyal Karim and the beautiful captive woman, and argues that the Torah permits it from the standpoint of Jewish law, and that the plain meaning of the passages does not narrow it to desire alone. He says that the conflict exists only for someone committed both to Jewish law and to morality, and formulates a solution in which the halakhic / of Jewish law permission stands alongside a severe moral prohibition, without logical contradiction. He argues that Jewish law does not have to be moral, and that this is a separate category; and when he is asked what should be done in practice, he says he would “hang” a soldier who did this, in the metaphorical sense, as a moral criminal and not a halakhic one. He adds that Hashem demands both “And you shall do what is upright and good” and observance of Jewish law, and that the two demands may create conflict in which sometimes Jewish law prevails and sometimes morality does, and the question is how one decides.

Conflicts between values: Sartre and the student in Paris

The speaker brings, in the name of Sartre, the story of a student who is torn between joining de Gaulle to fight the Nazis and staying behind to help his mother in Paris. He states that there is no contradiction here between the values, but rather commitment to two values that creates conflict only when opposite practical decisions are required. He uses this to justify the possibility of a similar conflict between a religious value and a moral value without turning it into a contradiction.

Returning a lost object: the Handels affair, despair, and separating halakhic / of Jewish law judgment from morality

The speaker describes the “Handels affair,” in which Eliezer Handels found a bundle of securities in the Kupat Am Bank, and the argument over whether the lost object belonged to Handels or to the bank, and the fact that Alon wrote in a minority opinion that Jewish law gives it to Handels while the other judges objected. He explains that legal systems see logic in leaving it with the bank in order to increase the chance that the loser will return, whereas Jewish law rules otherwise, and he connects this to the question of a lost object after despair: Jewish law sees despair as a significant factor, while civil law does not. He rejects the claim that there is a separate “halakhic morality” and argues that “morality is morality is morality,” but says that Jewish law is not morality but a legal system that determines a halakhic “legal truth.” He illustrates a ruling in favor of morality by noting that in the Shulchan Arukh one compels returning a lost object even after despair, although Jewish law allows taking it, because there is no halakhic transgression in returning it and morality requires returning it.

Living with conflicts, and the tendency to err in the very search for a solution

The speaker argues that the Torah and Jewish law teach us to live with conflicts and not be frightened by them, and that the search for a solution in the style of “who is right” already mistakenly assumes that both sides are speaking on the same plane. He says that the first goal is to see how “everyone is right” within different planes, and only afterward to deal with the practical question of what to do. He presents this as a way to reduce clashes and shift the argument to the plane of practical decision.

Hard conflicts: when Jewish law obligates and morality forbids

The speaker is asked about situations in which “Jewish law obligates and morality forbids,” such as killing Amalek, and agrees that there are hard conflicts, but argues that even there we are dealing with conflict and not contradiction. He says that Jewish law has ways of dealing with such conflicts as well, sometimes through interpretive tools and sometimes through behavioral rules, and brings an example from tractate Nazir: “A transgression for its own sake is greater than a commandment not for its own sake,” as a discussion of a conflict in which an external value overrides a halakhic value. He emphasizes that his distinction between the principled plane and the practical plane is preserved here too.

Organ donation: attacking a shared assumption as a third way

The speaker says that the dilemma over organ donation, between a prohibition on donating and a duty to save lives, is “a contradiction within Jewish law” and not between Jewish law and science, and he declares that “obviously one should donate organs,” though a halakhic justification is needed. He explains that the usual argument revolves around the question of whether brain death is death, and proposes a third way that attacks a shared assumption of both sides: it may be that the person is still alive, and nevertheless it is permitted to take an organ from someone living “a life of this type” for the sake of someone living “a full life.” He presents this as an example of how conflicts are solved not by choosing between A and B, but by undermining their shared assumption.

Factual claims in tradition versus science, and the status of empirical validity

The speaker is asked about factual claims within tradition as opposed to a scientific view, and he says that here this is a factual contradiction in which “on the scientific plane only one side is right,” and in his view when there is clear scientific information one should accept it. He is asked about an inequality of validity between science and faith because of the empirical validity of science, and he replies that the question of the grounds for faith is a different topic, and argues that there are “excellent and completely rational reasons, even if not empirical,” for faith commitment, but that requires a different lecture.

Okay, I’ll actually begin with—maybe I’ll need what you brought in the name of Einstein. As a physicist it’s even less pleasant for me to disagree with him, but I have to. I actually don’t think there’s a very tight connection between the fields. I don’t think that science without religion is blind, or vice versa. And what I’ll try to show in this lecture, very briefly, is to try and explain this very principle itself, this principle of separation between the fields. It isn’t trivial. People often attribute it to Leibowitz, but I think it requires a bit more careful analysis in order to present this thesis properly. The first connotation that comes up when we think about religion and science, or religion and morality—morality and science a little less, perhaps—is a connotation of conflict. So usually this is presented as some set of contradictory statements that often lead us to apologetics, more convincing or less convincing. And the first question that often leads people to encounter this seam, this interface, is a sense of conflict. But conflict has another feature—or we have another feature when we encounter conflict. We very often immediately go into excuse mode, explanation mode, trying to reconcile—or, more neutrally, I’d say, a mode of harmonization. That is, we try to create harmony between the two contradictory sides, and that’s how we arrive at what I described before, various kinds of apologetics. Basically, I think conflicts don’t always need harmonization. That is, of course when I have two contradictory theses, one possibility is to choose one, a second possibility is to choose the other, a third possibility is to harmonize them—that is, to show that there is no contradiction—and a fourth possibility is to remain with both without harmony. That too is a possibility, and I’ll try to explain it in my lecture today. In principle, these three fields—science, religion, and morality—seem to me to belong to different semantic fields, different logical fields, different philosophical fields. Science deals with facts, and theories about them. Morality deals with ethical norms. And religion—or at least the Jewish religion, I think—its essence is also norms, but not moral norms; rather, religious norms. And from my perspective, the difference between moral norms and religious norms is more or less like the difference between norms and facts. That is, these are two foreign domains. And therefore, what I want to argue is that these three fields ought to remain parallel to one another and separate from one another—which need not interfere either with holding all three of them, or of course with choosing only some of them. That is, my claim is that in order to hold all three of them, even though there are contradictions between these fields, one need not harmonize. One can remain with all three without resolving the contradictions. But that is easy to say—it’s even a very popular statement in recent years. I think that without the explanations or clarifications I’ll present here, it’s a bit too thin just to say it.

Okay, so I’ll begin first of all with some background on the logic of complexity. That is, what I mean when I speak about a complex perspective, or a perspective on these fields as parallel fields. An example that appears on your page, taken from Oscar Wilde—a well-known story of his, the children’s story The Happy Prince. In the first passage I bring a section from the book, where in the book basically some swallow—or “little bird” in the translation I read—remains in cold Europe after all its companions have already flown to warmer regions, and it gets stuck in a city where there is a statue, and on it, yes, high up, a statue of the prince. And then he began to see everything he had not seen in his lifetime, and he saw there all the suffering people and the poor and the miserable, in accordance with Oscar Wilde’s fertile imagination as always, and then this swallow falls beside him and he begins sending it on various missions, since he was covered with gold and precious stones and diamonds, and he sends various diamonds or gold to various miserable people around the city. As time goes on, winter of course deepens, and the swallow begins to feel that it is losing its strength. Not for nothing do they migrate to warm regions in winter. And then a heartbreaking scene takes place, part of which appears here. This translation—I found it on the internet, I didn’t want to type it, so it’s from some middle-school edition from Al-Najah. That’s the only place I found a Hebrew translation of this book online. Their logo even appears here. “But now he knew that he was going to die; still he had just enough strength left to fly up once more to the Prince’s shoulder. ‘Good-bye, dear Prince,’ murmured the little bird”—here it’s a little bird, not a swallow, fine—“‘will you let me kiss your hand?’ ‘I am glad that you are going to Egypt at last, little bird,’ said the Prince, ‘you have stayed too long here; but you must kiss me on the lips, for I love you.’ ‘It is not to Egypt that I am going,’ said the little bird, ‘I am going to the House of Death. Death is the brother of Sleep, is he not?’ And he kissed the Happy Prince on the lips, and fell down dead at his feet.” Dead, of course. “At that moment a curious crack sounded inside the statue, as if something had broken. The fact is that the leaden heart had snapped right in two. It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.”

That last sentence has fascinated me for many years, because the interesting question is why the prince’s heart broke. Did it break because he could not endure the heartbreaking scene, that the swallow, having finished all its noble tasks, died on the altar of its mission? Or did his leaden heart split in two because it couldn’t withstand the change in temperature? That is, the temperature actually split it in two, right? Which is why he ends, “It certainly was a dreadfully hard frost.” So what’s the correct answer? Right—both. Both and both. That is, if we look on the human-psychological plane—yes, of statues—then it split in two because of grief. But if we look on the physical plane, then it split in two because of the changes in temperature. So this basically means that we can relate to the very same event, to the very same thing, on two parallel planes. This doesn’t yet look like a contradiction, but there is parallelism here. There is no connection between the things.

I’ll add a parenthetical remark so you can see that life isn’t quite as simple as it looks, and this is also connected to Steinsaltz. Steinsaltz once wrote an article on causality, and there he cites a dispute among philosophers, analytic philosophers, on the question whether a cause has to be a necessary and sufficient condition for the effect, or whether a cause is a sufficient condition. Two schools in philosophy. There are those who say that a cause is a sufficient condition for the effect—it doesn’t have to be necessary, but it must be sufficient. That is, given the condition, the cause should occur—sorry, the effect should occur. Another school says it’s a necessary and sufficient condition. But in any case, everyone agrees that at the very least it has to be a sufficient condition. Now if a cause is a sufficient condition for the effect, then in fact it’s impossible to say what I said before. What I said before was that the changes in temperature broke the prince’s heart. If I see this as an explanation, that the changes in temperature were a cause of this result, the breaking of the heart, the breaking of the leaden heart, then that means that if there are changes in temperature, that is enough for the heart to break. It doesn’t matter right now whether there is a swallow in the background, whether it dies or doesn’t die, and what the other circumstances are. On the other hand, the second explanation, the human-psychological one—the explanation that the heart split in two because of grief over the swallow, or the little bird as in this translation—if I take it seriously, then it too has to be a sufficient condition. And if so, if the prince grieves over the little bird, then his heart should split in two even if the temperature were warm, even in the summer. Because otherwise it isn’t an explanation. A cause has to be a sufficient condition. And what this basically means is that each of these two explanations ought to stand on its own. To say that both of these explanations are correct—there’s an almost contradictory statement here. Not exactly contradictory, but almost contradictory, very problematic. Because every explanation is supposed to be a full and sufficient explanation. And if I see both of these things as explanations, then something here needs further explanation, and I’m not going to get into that.

That’s one example. A second example of two parallel ways of relating to the same thing: a person becomes religious. Then his former friends say to him—hopefully they’ll remain his friends afterward too—but his old non-religious friends say: they look for some explanation for why he did this, what kind of crisis he went through, what happened to him. They look for the motive or the psychological explanation. What do the religious say? Well, he discovered the light, understood the truth—they’re philosophers, right? What happens when someone leaves religion? If someone leaves religion, then the religious say: well, he wanted to permit sexual immorality to himself, he doesn’t have the strength to keep the commandments—they’re psychologists. What do the secular people say? No, finally he understood that until now he had been living nonsense, finally understood what’s true and what isn’t true—that is, the secular people are philosophers. So who’s right? That depends who you are, of course—but both are right. Both are right because every step we take can usually be interpreted on the philosophical plane, and it can also be interpreted on the psychological plane. Which plane do we choose? Unfortunately—but often that’s how it is—we choose the plane that’s convenient for us. When the philosophical plane threatens us, we attribute it to psychology. When the philosophical plane suits us, then we’re philosophers, right? And that is probably universal; it applies to all sides and from all directions. That’s probably human nature. But the truth is that both explanations are probably correct. Both approaches are correct. You can see it on the psychological plane and you can see it on the philosophical plane. Everyone has a complex array of considerations, and everyone is probably driven by psychological motives, and on the other hand a person, at least according to my view, is not driven by his psychology in a deterministic way. That is, he also makes decisions, receives decisions, and rationalizes his steps, and therefore philosophical explanations can be found as well.

Maybe one last example: the myth of Newton and the apple. An apple fell on his head according to the accepted myth, and then Newton’s eureka—he discovered the law of gravity. And the question I ask myself when I hear this story, assuming it ever happened at all, is: what bothered him about the theological explanation? Why didn’t he explain to himself that the apple—yes, Newton was a devout Christian, as is well known—why didn’t he explain to himself that the apple fell on his head as punishment for the fact that yesterday he didn’t turn the other cheek? That is, he committed some sin and because of that he got an apple on the head. There are theological explanations in abundance that could explain this matter. Why did he look for a physical explanation? And the reason is not because he didn’t believe in the theological explanation—I’m trying to guess, of course, unfortunately I didn’t know him—not because he didn’t accept the physical explanation, but because he wasn’t satisfied with it—with the theological explanation, sorry—because he wasn’t satisfied with it. On the theological plane he has one explanation; on the physical plane he looks for another explanation, exactly like the Happy Prince and his leaden heart. So these are just a few examples to illustrate why each of us, it seems to me, encounters situations in which he relates to the very same event on several explanatory planes simultaneously. Even though in our initial inclination we have some sense—and as I remarked earlier in parentheses it isn’t groundless—to think that these explanations perhaps exclude one another. If the explanation is physical, then who says the theological explanation is correct, and vice versa, since every explanation needs to be a sufficient condition. So there is a tendency, with philosophical basis, to think that one has to choose one of the explanations. But without entering the details at the moment, first of all I’m pointing to a fact: we do not do that. We do not do that. We resort to several explanatory planes simultaneously despite this feeling that there is nevertheless a contradiction and one must choose between them.

That brings me to the next point. There is a distinction in the halakhic realm between two situations that are both often called doubt. And that is the second example on your page, taken from Rabbi Shimon Shkop, Sha’arei Yosher, head of the yeshiva of Grodno in Lithuania in the first half of the twentieth century, or the first third of the twentieth century. A man with very impressive philosophical intuitions, in my view; quite a lot of the halakhic and meta-halakhic writings I write revolve around things of his. And here is one of them. In this passage I won’t read all of it because I don’t think I’ll have enough time for that, so I’ll describe briefly what is involved. A man comes to a father who has two daughters, and gives him a coin and says to him: “Behold, one of your daughters is betrothed to me by this coin.” Fine, so the father says, very good, if you want, all right. The Talmud defines such a situation as betrothal not given over for intercourse, betrothal that cannot be physically realized. Why not? So the medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain that we have here a doubt. What’s the doubt? Since I don’t know which—say Rachel and Leah are the two daughters—I don’t know which of the two daughters is betrothed, because he said one of them, he didn’t say who. So if that’s the case, Rachel may be my wife and Leah may be my wife. Now if Rachel is my wife, then Leah has the status of my wife’s sister. My wife’s sister is one of the forbidden sexual relationships; I am forbidden to have sexual relations with her. If Leah is my wife, then Rachel is my wife’s sister; I am forbidden to have sexual relations with her. So that means that since I am in a state of doubt, I in fact cannot realize this betrothal with either of them. And that is called betrothal not given over for intercourse. There is a halakhic dispute about this definition, what one does with such a thing; I’m not entering into it. For me what matters is only the definition.

The definition of this situation as doubt is a rather misleading definition. For example, one can ask: Maimonides’ view is that basically when I am in a state of doubt, by strict law I can be lenient. Even in a Torah-level doubt I can be lenient. Only rabbinically do they instruct me to be stringent—this is a note for those in the know—but in principle when I am in a state of doubt, I can be lenient. That is Maimonides’ position. Let’s say I have a piece of meat; I don’t know if it is kosher or not kosher. I can be lenient and eat it if I don’t know. If I know that it’s not kosher, it’s forbidden; if I don’t know, it can be eaten. Apropos the kashrut controversy now arising. So they ask about Maimonides: if that’s so, in this case where he betrothed one of these two sisters, then he is in doubt. And if he is in doubt, he can be lenient—let him take whichever one he wants, and whichever she wants, of course—actually she doesn’t need to want; it is enough that her father wanted—and realize what he wants. What’s the problem? Why are we, after all, merely in a doubt of prohibition?

That question is a mistake. Because we are not here in a state of doubt. A state of doubt is a state of lack of information. That is the ordinary case of doubt. For example, I sent an agent to betroth a woman for me, and the agent died after he betrothed her. Now I don’t know who my wife is. I have no idea whom he betrothed. The father also died. So now I don’t know which of the two daughters he betrothed; it’s like Hershele when he eats and everything dies. So I don’t know which of these two daughters is my wife. That is a state of doubt. Why? Because he betrothed one specific woman, but I lack the information who it is. But there is one specific woman who is my wife. What I lack is the information as to who she is. In the case I described earlier there isn’t one woman at all who is my wife. There is one undefined woman whom he betrothed, but she is undefined. If you were to ask the Holy One Blessed be He Himself, even He could not point to which of the two is my wife. This is not a state of doubt. In more modern language I would call such a state a state of vagueness. It’s a state connected to quantum logic, in fact—Schrödinger’s cat, for those familiar with the matter, that is exactly the same logic. I think I refer here to some lecture online where I explain this. And in fact such a state is not at all a state of doubt. It is a state that they call in the yeshivot “certain doubt,” or “doubtful certainty.” That is, each of the two women is my wife in a weak sense. Not that one of them is my wife and I just don’t know which, but rather each of them is my wife, only this is a weak marriage-status. The doubt is about the concept of marriage itself, not about who the betrothed woman is. This is a state of vagueness, not a state of doubt. And a state of vagueness requires stringency even according to Maimonides, apropos the question I asked earlier, and therefore one can resolve what I asked earlier—but that is less important for our purposes.

What is important to me is indeed to make the distinction between these two states. What is the difference between these two states? In a state of doubt, there is only one truth. There is one woman who is my wife; I don’t know who. I don’t know what the truth is. So therefore there are laws of doubt that tell me what I have to do. If I don’t know what the truth is, then the laws of doubt guide me as to what I am supposed to do. This exists in every legal system too, of course, not only in Jewish law—everywhere. We need to know what we do when we do not know what the truth is. But the question of what one does when there is no truth at all—not when we don’t know who the truth is or what the truth is. What happens when there is no truth at all? What then does one do? That is not the laws of doubt. When we don’t know at all—or when there is no truth at all, not when we don’t know—that is not the laws of doubt. The question is what one does with weak marriage-status. Not what one does when one doesn’t know who one’s wife is, but what weak marriage-status is, what its status is. What does one do with such a thing? That is not the laws of doubt; it is something entirely different. Or in other words I’ll ask: how can one say that both she is my wife and she is my wife, when if she is my wife, then the other is my wife’s sister and she cannot be betrothed to me. And if that one is my wife, then the second is her sister, my wife’s sister, and she cannot be betrothed to me. So here there are already two contradictory statements. But I hold both of them simultaneously, despite the fact that they contradict one another. And here it isn’t that there is one truth and I just don’t know who, as in cases of doubt. There are situations where the truth is one and I simply don’t know; there are two contradictory possibilities but there is no problem, and there is “I don’t know”: only one of the two is correct and I don’t know which. But here there are two contradictory possibilities and both are true. How does such a thing happen? What does one do with such a thing? That is a fascinating halakhic question too, which I won’t get into. I hope I’m whetting your appetite enough for you to think about it later. We are discussing the logical question; we are not interested in the fact that human beings are involved here—that is really marginal. Okay, in the halakhic discussion that’s marginal. I’m not saying one should ignore the fact that human beings are involved, but the halakhic discussion has to be conducted in a way that is completely detached from the human plane. At least start there.

Basically, in these two areas, in more modern language, one can say that two systems of tools are being used. The system of tools used to deal with the problem of lack of information is called probability. Probability or statistics. When there is some information, I don’t know what it is, I examine different possibilities and assign some weight to the different possibilities. What is the chance that this is correct? What is the chance that this is correct? I roll a die. I ask what is the chance it will land on six? So there is a one-sixth chance, assuming the die is fair; there is a one-sixth chance for each face. Does that mean there is no truth? Of course there is truth. In the end, when it lands, it will land on one of the faces. Only because in the meantime I do not have that information, I use probability to deal with this problem. In problems of lack of information, we use the tools of probability. In problems of vague reality, in principle we should not use probability. It turns out that probability helps with such problems too, surprisingly enough; that’s why in quantum theory they use probability, which is very, very surprising—but it works there. It should not have worked there. In principle, with problems of vague reality one uses what is called fuzzy logic. That is, a logic of vagueness. And this is a logic of truths that are not one or zero. Truth itself is not one or zero—not that the chance the truth is this is one quarter, but that it is true with intensity one quarter. That is something entirely different.

I’ll give one example to sharpen the point: the heap paradox. The heap paradox—which is a code name for a great many paradoxes—presents three claims, each of which seems very reasonable, but one cannot hold all three together. First premise: one pebble is not a heap. One pebble—that’s not a heap. Second premise: a million stones. A million pebbles is a heap. Third premise: if I have a collection that is not a heap, adding one pebble to it will not change its status. Right? If, say, two stones are not a heap, then three are also not a heap. One stone doesn’t make the difference. Okay? These three premises, of course, are incompatible. Right? Because if with one it isn’t a heap and adding one stone does not change the status, then two also are not a heap. And if not two, then not three, and four, and five, up to a million. But all three premises sound reasonable. Which one do we give up? We have to give one up; they contradict one another. Which one do we give up? I would give up the third. But not give it up in a trivial way, by saying that from 17 stones onward it’s a heap, because that isn’t true. We don’t define heaps that way. There is no number that determines that from there on it’s a heap. That would be artificial. So what is the right thing to do? One has to understand that the concept of a heap is not a black-and-white concept. Not every collection is either definitely a heap or definitely not a heap. There are collections that are not a heap; there are collections that are a little bit of a heap; there are collections that are fairly much a heap; there are collections that are very much a heap; and there are collections that are completely a heap. Okay? In fact, the degree of heap-ness has a continuum of possible levels, between zero and one if you like. This is called fuzzy logic. And this is a logic that describes a reality where reality itself is vague. This is not lack of knowledge on my part. I lack no knowledge at all; I know everything about the reality. It’s just that the concept of a heap itself is a fuzzy concept, a vague concept. It is a concept that cannot be defined in black-and-white terms, in one-or-zero terms. There are various situations in reality that are fuzzy in their essence. There are situations where reality itself is vague, like Schrödinger’s cat or two slits or all the famous examples from quantum theory, where in fact we are supposed to deal with them using the tools of fuzzy logic. And that is indeed what one does, if one translates it correctly. So this is actually a completely different reality from the reality of doubt.

If I return to our subject, then when I speak about contradictions or a dichotomy between a religious claim and a scientific claim, or a religious claim and a moral claim—science and morality I think less often raise such problems. The use of science, yes, but not science itself, not scientific claims themselves. The use of science can of course be moral or immoral. These dilemmas are often perceived by people as dilemmas of the type of doubt. One is right and the other is wrong; we just don’t know which. And often this conception—that what we have here is doubt—is the conception that guides both sides of the people arguing. The religious say religion is true and therefore science is false, because one has to choose. There is doubt, so either this is true or the other is true. And the atheists will say science is true and religion is false. And what atheists and religious people share is that both agree that one has to choose. Because both relate to this dilemma as a dilemma of the type of doubt, not a dilemma of the type of vagueness. How can one see it differently? Either the world has existed for six thousand years or it has existed for 15 billion years. How can one see that differently?

So I’ll bring perhaps one more example that I’m fond of. But before that example—obviously dilemmas of this sort arise only for someone who is committed to both sides of the equation. That is, someone who is committed to one side—someone whose religiosity is not rational, meaning he does not accept rational thinking as a criterion, as a binding measure—then he is not troubled. He does not solve the dilemma; he is not in a dilemma at all. One side of the equation is self-evident to him. Likewise the other side. That is, someone who relates to scientific thinking—and now I’m being careful not to say rational, because in my opinion rationality exists on both sides—scientific thinking is for him the only legitimate toolbox, and the religious system is perceived by him as something completely lacking validity, then he too is not in a dilemma. He doesn’t need to decide. The one who is in a dilemma is only someone who takes seriously both toolboxes or both systems of thought. But then the question really does arise: what does one do with this? Is this only a temporary state, a passing state? I’m in a dilemma because I thought both were serious, but now I have to choose whom to throw out and with whom to remain. That is, is the possibility of holding both sides of the coin only a temporary state or not? Is it possible also to remain with it in the end? In the end, then, I want to claim that yes—it is possible to remain with both sides.

I’ll bring another example, a regular argument between people, some of whom I know from time to time: should one eat chocolate or not eat chocolate? Reuven argues that one should eat chocolate because it is very tasty, and Shimon argues that one should not eat chocolate because it is fattening. Who is right? Both of them. But that’s contradictory, isn’t it? Why? They are not contradictory. The fact that it is tasty does not contradict the fact that it is fattening, right? On the contrary. That’s one of the refutations of evolution, you know? Evolution should have made sure that what is healthy would be tasty. These are two foreign sets that cover the whole space. It’s a full partition, as they say in mathematics: the tasty and the healthy. So in any case, why is there no contradiction? There is no contradiction because saying that something is tasty does not contradict the fact that it is unhealthy—quite the opposite, it is almost synonymous. That is, when it’s tasty then of course it is unhealthy. What contradiction? Where is the contradiction found? The contradiction is found in the normative question: what should one do with these facts. The fact is that it is tasty, and the fact is that it is fattening. On the normative question I have to make a decision: either I eat it or I don’t eat it. This thing is not a contradiction—it is a conflict. A contradiction is a contradiction between two opposed propositions. When you accept X, you cannot accept Y, because Y is equivalent to not-X. So you cannot accept X and Y simultaneously. X and Y is a logical contradiction—that is a contradiction. Here there is no contradiction. To say that chocolate is tasty and unhealthy is not a contradiction; it is the absolute truth. So what? But on the practical plane it puts me in conflict. I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what to do because the fact that it is tasty is a good reason to eat it, while the fact that it is unhealthy is a good reason not to eat it. So on the practical plane I am in conflict, but this is not a contradiction.

Now in the examples I brought earlier, in most cases—and again, I have to remain here at the level of generalizations and not enter into a detailed analysis of specific problems, so I’m speaking generally and not about every problem—I think one can take this all the way. But in many of them, almost all of them, I want to argue that the three planes I spoke about earlier—which is the subject of our conference, religion, science, and ethics—are actually three conceptual spheres foreign to one another, and therefore there is no contradiction between the different statements of the different systems. At most conflicts are created, but there is no contradiction. Chocolate can be both tasty and unhealthy, and I can think, on the basis of taste considerations, that it is right to eat it, and on the basis of health considerations, that it is not right to eat it. Since I am committed both to taste and to health, I am in conflict, and now that I am in conflict I have to make a decision. It’s a good question how one makes the decision. Each person will make the decisions as he sees fit. Or not eat at all, yes. Or not eat or yes eat—that’s the decision, those are the two possibilities. Eat a little—that’s the quantum solution. Okay, to eat weak chocolate, diet chocolate. I do not recommend quantum solutions in this context. Right, here I do not recommend the fuzzy solution. It’s fuzzy chocolate. Well, it is better to eat a little real chocolate than to eat fuzzy chocolate. Okay.

What I basically want to argue is that in almost all the cases I can think of, when we are in conflict between the planes, these are not contradictions. They are not contradictions because the claims themselves are not opposed. This can express itself in conflict on the practical plane, on the plane of one sort of implication or another, but not on the logical plane. Not a contradiction of a proposition and its negation simultaneously. I’ll bring an example דווקא from the area of religion and morality, because there people often take it for granted that this is in fact a contradiction, or the kind of situation I called earlier doubt, and therefore one has to decide: is it this or that? And therefore the world is divided into those who decide in the religious direction or in the moral direction—or those who are not troubled by the whole matter, of course, but we’re not talking about those people. I think there is another option that people do not always take into account, and that option is that one can remain with both.

I’ll bring an example that was current not so long ago, when the new Chief Military Rabbi was appointed—the last one, Rabbi Eyal Karim. Then all kinds of quotations of his were brought back from the dead about the beautiful captive woman, about the rape of female captives by soldiers. And then of course all the apologetics began—that this isn’t relevant today and this and that. The practical problem remains in place; it is hard to deny: the Torah does indeed permit such a thing. Almost—yes, almost all the halakhic decisors agree. There are those who want to claim that it is not by force but only by consent, but it seems to me that the straightforward meaning of the Talmudic passages and the Torah itself is not that way. The Torah permits such a thing. This puts people into conflict. Now, the people who enter into conflict are of course only religious people. Secular people, or those not committed to Jewish law, can at most use this as an argument, but they are not in conflict. You are in conflict only if you are committed to both sides. You are committed to Jewish law and committed to morality, and then a conflict is created. Committed—or is there an option, a right? No, committed, committed. I don’t know what rights are. A right to be moral—I don’t know what that is; there is an obligation to be moral. Or what is the result? No, no, not an obligation, you’re allowed to. What? You’re allowed to take her. No, the commitment is not to take the beautiful captive woman. The commitment is a commitment to Jewish law and a commitment to moral principles. Okay?

What I want to argue—what I want to argue is that one can, and by the way one can offer several different solutions here—but it seems to me that the more reasonable solution, in my eyes, is actually from within commitment to both sides. I want to argue that the Torah permits it halakhically, but it is morally forbidden. There is no… I’m done; there’s nothing to preserve. That’s it—that’s what I said. What contradiction is there here? On the halakhic plane it is permitted, and on the moral plane it is most reprehensible. Exactly as every person who is not committed to Jewish law thinks, I think so too. So Jewish law is not moral? Correct. Who said Jewish law has to be moral? Just as health is not tasty, right? Health considerations say not to eat chocolate, and health is not tasty. That is not some great disgrace. These are two different systems, each striving for its own goals, with its own tools, with its own means, working with its own rules and reaching its own conclusions. I, as the person in the situation, of course have to decide practically what to do. Practically what to do? I would hang a soldier who does that—hang him metaphorically at least. Okay? Obviously. But I would hang him not because he is a halakhic criminal, but because he is a moral criminal. But God, after all—God, here I am entering theology and I don’t have time to go into it here, but I’ll say just one sentence because that really is an expected question. I agree with that comment. God of course demands—it says in the Torah, “And you shall do what is upright and good.” He demands of us to do the good, but at the same time He also demands of us to keep Jewish law, just as He might demand of us to behave according to the rules of health—there are those who claim He demands “and live by them”—and He also tells us “enjoy life”; He demands of us to enjoy life, if you like. Resh Lakish, on his deathbed, cried over some little cake he hadn’t managed to eat and enjoy. So there are two things. Does that contradict the fact that there is chocolate that is tasty but unhealthy? No. The two demands in this case put me in conflict, and I have to decide what to do, which takes precedence. By the way, not always will one side prevail; sometimes Jewish law will prevail, sometimes morality will prevail—I’m telling you my personal opinion. But that is another question: how does one decide such conflicts? But the option of being in conflict very often does not arise in these contexts. People immediately look for what the solution is; they see it as doubt. So is it moral or immoral? Is Jewish law right or is morality right? The answer is that both are right. That is what Jewish law determines, and that is what morality determines. And the question of what I will do in the final analysis—that is a conflict, just as there is a conflict between two moral values.

Sartre tells in one of his books about a student—yes, he lived in Paris during World War II—a student came to him with a question. He has an elderly mother, his father is collaborating with the Nazis, his brother was murdered by the Nazis, and he is deliberating—he came to deliberate with his teacher and master Sartre—whether to go enlist in the Free French army under de Gaulle and fight the Nazis, or remain and help his elderly mother who was left there alone in Paris. What does that mean? There are two values here. One value is to fight evil. The second value is to help your mother—not an elderly mother, but certainly if she is elderly you need to help your mother. So this is a conflict. Is there a contradiction in being in such a conflict? I am committed to both these values, but they do not contradict one another. These are two values to which I am committed, and there is no problem with that. The conflict arises in certain cases, not always. The conflict arises in certain cases, not always, by the way, in cases where these values lead me to opposite practical decisions. And then I am in conflict and need to resolve it. But such a state is not contradictory. In such a state there can be found—and is found—a person committed only to morality. This dilemma is a dilemma between two moral values, not only between a moral value and a religious value. And there too I can find myself in conflict. So I see no obstacle to saying that I can find myself in conflict also between a religious value and a moral value. I am in conflict, and the question of what I am supposed to do is a good question. One has to decide just as I decide every decision in every value-dilemma, in every value-conflict. But there is no contradiction here. These are two systems to which I am committed, and both instruct me what to do. On the practical plane they create a conflict.

One more example, and I’m already nearing the end—another example from the laws of returning a lost object. Let’s take a more neutral topic. There are loaded topics; I’ll take a neutral one. From the laws of returning a lost object: our cousins the jurists are accustomed to invoking a court case called the Handels case. Handels—Eliezer Handels, after the man involved in the matter. Yes, a Jew named Eliezer Handels was involved in this matter. He found a bundle of securities on the floor of Bank Kupat Am. And the question was whether he had to hand these securities over to the bank, or whether he could take—of course the loser, the person who lost them, was not found—and now the question is who is entitled to take the securities for himself. Eliezer Handels or the bank. They argued, of course, over the right to perform the commandment of returning a lost object. There was a major fight there over who is considered the finder, who has the right to perform returning a lost object. The court had a fascinating discussion there, which they usually treat on the level of the Foundations of Law Act. That is, the question whether I can take Jewish law and fill some legal lacuna that was there, if there was one, or not. Because there is a halakhic statement: Jewish law determines that in such a case it goes to Handels, as Elon wrote there in the ruling, but the other judges objected. Elon was in the minority, and they said no.

What drew my attention to this matter has nothing at all to do with the Foundations of Law Act. Beyond the question whether to use Jewish law to fill a legal lacuna, the more interesting question for me is why there is in fact a difference in approach. Why do legal systems—and I’m not a legal expert, but from what was written there it seemed that all legal systems agree on this—that it belongs to the bank. The purpose of the laws of returning a lost object is to locate the loser in the best possible way, to return it to the loser. Now if Handels had taken it for himself, there is no chance the loser would have come to him; he doesn’t know him. If we leave it in the bank, then there is a chance that the loser will remember that he dropped it in the bank, return to the bank, and receive his lost item. So from the standpoint of logical consideration, it should be left to the bank, but Jewish law says it goes to Handels. Why? Here I’ll suffice with two sentences because I can’t enter a detailed analysis. There is a similar question regarding a lost object after despair. A lost object after the owner has despaired—if I take it after the owner has despaired, it is mine according to Jewish law. The law does not see despair as anything significant. Despair doesn’t interest it; despair has become more comfortable, as the song says. The law does not see despair as anything significant. It does not play a role on this playing field. Why not? Again, because morality says: what do I care if he despaired? He despaired because he thought he wouldn’t find it, but in truth he’s the owner; why should you keep it for yourself? If you know it’s his, give it back to him. What difference does it make if he despaired? You don’t know, you don’t know—but if you know it’s his, give it back to him. Why doesn’t Jewish law say that?

There are those who will say: because there is a different halakhic morality. I’ve heard many people say that when I presented this question to them. Because halakhic morality is supreme, divine, I don’t know, all kinds of words I don’t understand. Morality is morality is morality. There is no halakhic morality and another morality. There is one morality. One can argue about certain moral matters, but Jewish law has no morality of its own. Morality really does say to return it to the loser. How do I know this? Because it is written in the Talmud and ruled as Jewish law in the Shulchan Arukh, and some halakhic decisors say that one even compels the finder to return the lost object to the loser after the loser has despaired, when I picked it up after the loser despaired, even though Jewish law says that it is mine. Why? Because morality says to return it. But Jewish law says not to return it. Why? Because Jewish law is not morality. It determines by legal tools—I’m speaking only telegraphically here—Jewish law determines what the legal truth is from its point of view, halakhic law. Halakhic law is not morality. That is a separate category. Now, in the bottom line: morality says return it to the one who despaired. Jewish law says you don’t have to return it; it is mine. What does a Jew do? Here, in this case for example, the decision goes in favor of morality. They compel him to return it even after despair. That is written in the Shulchan Arukh. Why? Because in this case, of course, it is not a halakhic transgression to return it. I can keep it, but there is no transgression in returning it. So if morality says to return it, certainly I will return it. So here, for example, is a case of conflict decided in favor of the moral side and not in favor of the halakhic side, and it is decided that way in the Shulchan Arukh.

That means that Jewish law—by the way, this is familiar to every student—Jewish law in fact teaches us, or I would say the Torah even more than Jewish law, to live with conflicts. I am not frightened by conflicts. And when there is a contradiction between Jewish law and morality, Torah and science, or things of that sort, the first solution I look for is how to see that everyone is right. I do not look for a solution to the question of who is right at all. Someone who looks for a solution to who is right usually misses one of the two sides, because he says that these two sides are speaking on the same plane, and that is already the mistake. The moment you look for a solution, you have already erred. Because you think the contradiction really is a contradiction because they are speaking on the same plane. That one should not eat chocolate because it is unhealthy contradicts eating chocolate because it is tasty. It does not contradict. I have a conflict. And conflicts are what Jewish law deals with—what one does on the practical plane with conflicts. That is another discussion. But regarding the fundamental question, the philosophical question, what one does with the contradiction between these different planes, we can live with all three of them. And the practical decisions we need to make. Each time there is an impressive collection of rules—what one does, in effect, the halakhic fuzzy logic. Yes, the halakhic rules of what to do in situations of conflict. There are a great many halakhic rules for what to do in situations of conflict, and that means that Jewish law is not excited by conflicts at all. And I think that lesson would be worth adopting even for someone not committed to Jewish law, because very often when we encounter such a thing we immediately begin fighting over who is right and who is wrong, when very often both sides are right. The whole question is only a dispute about what to do practically. What to do in the final analysis. About that one can argue more calmly if one understands this point.

The question was whether there are cases where—and this made life easy for me—there are cases where the conflicts are head-on conflicts, and not a case where Jewish law permits and morality forbids. When Jewish law permits and morality forbids, I can forbid it and come out at peace with both sides. But there are cases where Jewish law obligates and morality forbids, and then we are in a real conflict. Right, for example killing Amalek, or things of that kind. No, Samson is a question—it’s not exactly a halakhic command. Okay, but it isn’t a halakhic command. So that’s another discussion. But fine, there are such examples. Right, but first of all I want to say that the contradiction still does not exist even there. It is still a conflict and not a contradiction. When I say that halakhically it is an obligation and morally it is forbidden, there is no problem with that. Just like, for example, the chocolate example is similar to that. Not the easy examples. Because in the chocolate example, if I eat then it is unhealthy, and if I don’t eat then I have lost the taste. So again, it’s not as fateful as that, but I’m saying on the logical level it is the same thing. I said that I distinguish between the two discussions. First of all, on the principled level I live on both planes simultaneously. Both this is true and that is true. When a conflict is created, there are cases where it is easy to solve it. For example the cases I brought in returning a lost object, where I am allowed to return the lost object after despair—I am not obligated, and morality says return it, so I return it. There are conflicts of the difficult type. Regarding conflicts of the difficult type too, Jewish law has what to say. Jewish law also deals with conflicts of the difficult type. I can’t now get into all the questions of how to resolve such conflicts—sometimes by interpretive means, sometimes by means of rules of conduct, of what one does in situations of conflict—and by the way it does not always go in the direction of Jewish law and against morality.

I’ll give perhaps just one example: a passage in Tractate Nazir says that a transgression for its own sake is greater than a commandment not for its own sake. And the passage there deals with a conflict of the difficult type, and it says that in fact we should have gone with the external value against the halakhic value. That is, there are such situations as well. The Torah is not frightened even by such situations. Therefore the distinction between the fundamental question—whether there is a contradiction here—and the practical question—what one does with the conflict—stands, in my opinion, even with such conflicts. How one resolves the conflicts—I didn’t get into that here in any case, so I can’t also get into it now.

How does the halakhic prohibition on organ donation fit together with the obligation to save lives? That is not a contradiction between Jewish law and science; it is a contradiction within Jewish law. So it is not a question of Jewish law and science. I once wrote an article about it. I think that in this context there is not even a contradiction, so one doesn’t even need to resolve it. Clearly one should donate organs. But of course one needs halakhic reasoning that explains this matter. Broadly, perhaps I’ll say one more sentence about this issue, because it touches a great many of these conflicts. Very often both sides in the conflict are based on a shared assumption. And one can find a third way that is neither A nor B if one attacks the shared assumption. For example, in this context of organ donation there is a shared assumption that if the person is alive, it is forbidden to take from him, right? The principal dilemma really arises in a situation where the person is between brain death and cardiac death. That is, he is brain dead and still not cardiac dead. The question is whether it is permitted to harvest his heart, for example, and transplant it into someone else, which would save that person’s life. So people always hang this on the question whether brain death is considered death. If so, then he is already dead and one may take the heart. If he is still alive because cardiac death is death—that is, as long as cardiac death has not occurred he is still alive—then one may not harvest organs because that is killing a person. One does not kill one person in order to save another person. Right? And the argument is only over the question whether this is death or not death. And I deny the assumption shared by both sides. I think it may be that he is alive and nevertheless one may take the organ. That one may take the organ from someone who is alive with this kind of life for the sake of a person who is alive with a full life. So here is another example of a third way of resolving conflicts. That already touches the question of what one does with the conflict, not only the question of what one does with the contradiction.

Yes. Okay. The question was what one does with factual claims within the tradition, within the Torah, when they stand against a scientific view. Here this already is a contradiction between fact and fact, not between fact and norm. And then the question is what one does in such a situation. The answer is that on the scientific plane only one side is right, and therefore either you do not accept the Torah view or you do not accept the scientific view. In my personal opinion, where there is clear scientific information, then apparently one should accept it. The question was what I would have done in Newton’s place, assuming I would have remained alive from the apple. What would I have done in Newton’s place, and can I live with both sides of the equation simultaneously? That is, both to say that the force of gravity made the apple fall and also to say that it fell on me as a result of my sins. So in that context, again, if I am speaking of these two on the factual plane, then on the factual plane this is a contradiction. And therefore if I were sitting in Newton’s place, I would not be in conflict at all. I would say that it fell on me because of the force of gravity. That would not be a question. But I’ll repeat this: the claim was that one cannot live or relate to the two planes, religion and science, as two equivalent planes and as a result live with both of them. Because science has experimental validity, that is, empirical validity, and faith, or religious faith, is not such. That is, it does not emerge from scientific measurements and observations. That question of course takes me back to a completely different question; it does not touch my lecture at all, because it touches the question of why you are a believer. Now if you want a lecture on that, I’d be happy to give one. I think there are good reasons for it, but to each his own position. I began my lecture from the next stage: assuming that I am a believer and also committed to rational thinking and to the findings of science, what do I do with that? How do I relate to this double commitment? Why am I committed to my faith? I think there are excellent and completely rational explanations for that as well, even if not empirical. But that really is a subject for another lecture.