Answer

Hello X.
A preliminary note. If you’re already in a postmodern state, there’s no point in discussion. A person in that state can’t hear and weigh arguments, because whatever you say, he immediately says it’s a subjective hallucination of the speaker, and really there is no truth, and the opposite is equally true. And even if there is a convincing argument, that conviction is just psychological-subjective. So what’s the point of discussing?
If you still want to discuss, then I assume you’re not yet in that state, but only considering it.
Belief in God, for me, cannot be the result of a search for meaning. The desire for there to be meaning is a wish, not an argument. The fact that I want there to be meaning doesn’t mean there actually is such a thing (as noted, I’m not a postmodernist and not a pragmatist who identifies wishes or benefits with truth).
I’ve just now written four notebooks (long ones) dealing with the four types of proofs for the existence of God (three from the Kantian classification and one more). There I lay out the path to faith in detail. In my opinion, someone who does not believe is simply not rational; that is, belief in God is a very well-grounded thing. And I say this as no small skeptic. Of course, we’re talking about a philosophical God (or philosophical gods, because each proof assumes a different definition of Him). From here to religious commitment there is still a ways to go, and about that I wrote a fifth booklet. Two more books I’m currently working on are supposed to complete the picture of a faith updated for our times (throwing out all sorts of unfounded and non-binding slogans we’re all educated on).

Discussing all this by email is of course very difficult. If you’d like to begin reading the philosophical arguments for belief in God, I can send you the notebooks mentioned above. The first deals with the ontological proof, and I suspect most people won’t be convinced by it. But it has value in clarifying the concept of proof, the concept of God, and the methodology of the discussion in general. The arguments in the next three notebooks are, in my opinion, much stronger in terms of persuasive power.
The notebooks are apparently meant to come out as a book, so for now I’d ask that you not distribute them.
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Questioner:
Rabbi, what do you say about this statement by Rabbi Cherlow—maybe all the booklets are doomed to fail? Maybe we simply cannot prove in an absolute way the existence of God?

“The attempt to base faith on proofs is indeed impossible.
Reason is not capable of containing things greater than itself. Just as it cannot contain the concept of ‘love’ and prove its existence, or the term ‘morality’ and prove its existence.
Reason has an important role. But a limited one. Like everything else.
Our faith draws from the special intimacy we have with our ancestors, with our history, with what we have been told about our God, and with partial rational proofs (the unique history of the Jewish people; the unique history of the Land of Israel; and so forth), and with many other dimensions of personality.
In this respect, faith is more similar to the process of falling in love than to a process of mathematical proof.”
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Rabbi:
A very common statement, but plainly mistaken. True, there is room for personal impression from the tradition (see booklet five), but that is certainly not the whole picture, and certainly not necessarily the whole picture (perhaps a person can base his faith on such impressions, but Rabbi Cherlow claims one must base it on that because it can’t be done otherwise). Read what I wrote and you’ll see that this is not true. The fact that this is something greater than us is just a slogan. If I believe in something, then I’m supposed to understand what I believe in. And once I understand some claim, I see no reason it cannot be proven. On the other hand, if I don’t understand something, I cannot believe in it.
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Questioner:
Can I photocopy the booklets for myself? Would that be okay with you?
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Rabbi:
Yes.
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Questioner:
Do you see that as a legitimate claim, but one that doesn’t occupy a place in your world of faith? If yes or no, then why?
What about the Jewish God? Do you think someone who doesn’t believe in Him and believes in a Muslim or Christian God is also not rational?
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Rabbi:
It has weight. In general, my worldview is built on a whole set of claims. It’s not right to discuss each claim separately (see booklet V).
Rationality requires belief in some kind of God.
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Questioner:
First of all, thank you so much for the answer, and also for the astonishing speed.
As for the search for meaning—I understood your argument. But can one ignore the fact that all human beings search for meaning? And a person without meaning is a depressed person. That’s not a philosophical argument, but it says that if it’s this way for everyone, then there’s something to it. I have rabbis in my yeshiva who say exactly that, and that is the basis for faith. I see there’s a gap between you and them, because they would say, I think, that this is above the whole philosophical discussion—they simply wouldn’t accept that it’s such a powerful engine in a person and yet doesn’t point to a certain truth. What do you say?
I’d really be happy to receive the booklets! (I hope I’ll understand them… they told me your books are hard.)
By the way, according to your view, is someone who doesn’t believe in the Jewish God also not rational?
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Rabbi:
The claim that if everyone seeks meaning, that is an indication that there is meaning, is a completely legitimate claim, and it sounds plausible to me. Here there is a philosophical assumption, not a psychological one like the previous formulation (that we want meaning).
Here are the booklets. Of course, this is what I’ve written so far. The wording is not final.
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Questioner:
As a result of my doubts, I don’t know whether to continue praying or observing commandments at all right now, even though I used to feel very connected to them and very enthusiastic about them,

Because the question keeps coming up for me: “Maybe this is just excitement for its own sake? After all, the Christian and the Buddhist and many others also claim enthusiasm and total devotion.”

I also want to remain objective in the inquiry. It could very well be that I’ll decide Judaism is not true, despite the sorrow that would cause me.

Maybe I need to continue keeping the “kindness of youth” from the times when I had experiential certainty, and it’s okay that I have certain doubts; I always had them (just with less intensity).

I really don’t know. Right now I’m making a bit of a “salad”—I do the minimum (which of course isn’t so clearly defined), and then go back to studying the issue.

What do you think?
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Rabbi:
I meet many people in that state, and in my opinion many of them are mixing up truth and certainty a bit. The fact that you don’t have certainty is only logical and natural. There is certainty about nothing. But the fact that there is no certainty doesn’t mean that what you think has the same status as any other thought (= postmodern skepticism). You need to decide whether something seems reasonable to you or not, and not trouble yourself with the question of maybe there is some deceiving demon. Such challenges can also be raised regarding science and just ordinary things you see with your own eyes. But if you think it’s true, then it’s true, and that’s that.
I also have no certainty—not about the existence of God, not about the revelation at Mount Sinai, and not about anything else. And still, what I think is what I think, and if in my estimation it’s true, then I go with it. A person cannot reach more than that, and therefore it’s reasonable that no more is demanded of him. As for the comparison to other religions, see the fifth booklet I sent you.
It’s important to clarify that I’m not offering psychological therapy here or a calming prescription. I’m talking about the truth. The tools we have for reaching truth are the ones we have, and therefore someone who believes in the ability to reach truth in some realm (science, theology, morality, or any other field) trusts them and has no reason to doubt them. He of course needs to understand that there is no certainty, but what I mean here is doubt in the sense that gives them no status because the chance that everything is an illusion is the same as the chance that everything is true.
In other cases, the doubts begin from realizing that part of what we were educated on is dubious (at best), and then people start wondering about everything. Here too I suggest (from experience) not getting overly shaken. Throw out what does not seem correct (without hesitation, but after serious clarification), and keep what does seem reasonable. Contrary to what they sell us, our tradition is not a package deal. You may, and should, sift out what is reasonable from it and throw away other things. What is reasonable is not necessarily what we understand, but what is appropriate to do (given at Sinai, or by a prophet, or regarding practical instructions—accepted by an authorized halakhic institution, as opposed to matters of thought, where you are supposed to decide for yourself and there are no authority considerations there).
All these are general statements. You’re welcome to speak with me if you want to clarify them in more detail. It’s hard to do everything by email.
All the best and good luck,
Michi
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Questioner:
Yes, I’d be happy to talk to you. Do you have classes one can come to?
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Rabbi:
I have a regular class on Thursday evenings at 8:45 at a synagogue in Petah Tikva. But if you want to talk, set up a meeting with me at the university (Bar-Ilan).
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Questioner:
I’ll come to the class. Is there one this week? Which synagogue is it?
Yes, and I also want to schedule a meeting—what times can you do?
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Rabbi:
The class is on Thursdays at 8:45 PM at Mishkan Yisrael Synagogue, 7 Glitzenstein St., Petah Tikva. If you plan to come regularly, payment should be arranged with Yitzhak.
Of course, for a one-time visit there’s no problem. And of course that also has nothing to do with talking with me, which should be arranged separately. I prefer at the university. Possible times are Wednesdays from 10–12, or Tuesdays at 3. Or Mondays, or evenings at my home in Lod. 052-3320543
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Questioner:

Do the topics of the classes deal with the kind of things that are bothering me?

As for the meeting, when do you think it would be more effective for us to meet—after I read the booklets, so I don’t come completely ignorant? On the other hand, I’m not managing to understand the ontological proof, so maybe it would be better if I heard it from you orally?

And if you have time, and I’m sorry if I’m bothering you;
Is this similar to the proof you present? It just looks like he’s inventing all the parameters:

Stage A: Definitions.

God = absolutely complete being (that is, absolutely perfect).
Clarification: God can be defined in different ways, but I’m allowed to choose any definition I want, since what I choose to define is what I choose to prove the existence of. If you choose to define God differently—fine, prove the existence of something else.

Absolutely complete = having all perfections (all positive properties) and no deficiency whatsoever (any negative property).
Clarification: When we speak of positive and negative properties, we do not mean on a moral or social scale, since that is debatable, etc. Rather, our criterion is: whoever has something has a “positive property,” and whoever lacks that thing has a “negative property.”

The proof:
Among the positive properties, indicate which is positive and which is negative:

Wise – foolish.
Powerful – powerless.
Good – evil.

It is clear that the wise person has wisdom and the fool lacks it, therefore the wise person has the positive property. And the same applies to the others that follow.

And here is another pair:

Existing – non-existing.

Clearly, “existing” is the positive property, as above.

From here it follows that according to the above definition, God is necessarily wise, necessarily powerful, necessarily good—and necessarily existing.

QED.
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Rabbi:

The topics of the classes do not necessarily deal with the kind of things that are bothering you. I deal with various topics. The class has been running for 11 years. This year I spoke about definitions, about right and left, public and individual, and so on.

It’s better to meet after you read. As I wrote, the ontological proof does not convince most people, and I added it mainly for methodological reasons. But various objections to it are discussed in the booklet. If it interests you, try there and then we’ll talk.

In any case, I didn’t understand your argument against the proof. You wrote several logical claims and didn’t say what you wanted to infer from them. Did you mean to say that this way one can prove anything one wants? That is an objection similar to that of the existing island: the assumption that it doesn’t exist leads to a contradiction, and therefore it necessarily exists. That is dealt with in the booklet.

I’ll also note that your clarification is problematic in my opinion. Why do you define wisdom as an entity and foolishness as an absence? Let’s define foolishness as an entity and wisdom as an absence.
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Questioner:
I wanted to ask about the cosmological argument.
You raise this objection, but I didn’t understand the answer.
How can one say there is an infinite higher being? Isn’t that an infinite regress?
You answer there that God is a potential infinity, but if He is potential, then how does He exist?
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Rabbi:
He exists concretely, but His infinity is potential. Meaning, what we can say about Him is only that He is greater than anything we know. That is the meaning of saying He is infinite.
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Questioner:
I don’t understand. If you say He is a potential infinity, then how did you turn Him into something concretely existing?
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Rabbi:
His existence is ordinary existence. I am now discussing His traits/characteristics. Regarding those, it is customary to say that He is infinite. The question is what the meaning of that term is—concrete or potential? Here I said that His infinity is potential. When I say of someone that he has a trait described in potential language, that has no bearing at all on the question of his actual existence. It’s a question about the language used to describe him.
By way of example, Maimonides says that God’s descriptions are made only in negative form (negative attributes). Does that mean He does not exist except in a negative way? He exists, and the language Maimonides uses to describe Him is negating language.
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Questioner:
Okay, I think I understood more or less.
Another question came up for me.
Regarding the “God of the gaps” issue—in the cosmological argument, and maybe also in the physico-theological argument, the claim is based on the idea that whatever was before the singularity point is God (or whatever caused the laws, or caused it to expand), but one day they’ll solve that question too—what preceded the singularity point.
True, right now we can’t really imagine it, and at the moment it seems to us like a question that belongs to philosophy and not science, but in the future science will solve these problems.
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Rabbi:
I explained this both in the booklet and in the book God Plays Dice.
At least in terms familiar to us today, they will never be able to solve it, because when they find what created the Big Bang, I’ll ask who created the thing that created the Big Bang. In the end one arrives at something that always existed, and that is God.
Of course one can say that perhaps they’ll discover something with completely different logic (I can’t even imagine what that could be, and I think nobody today can imagine it), but it sounds ridiculous to me to build anything on that. It’s like someone giving me a good argument for proposition X, and I reject it by saying that true, it’s very convincing, but maybe someday someone will find some refutation of it (even though at present there is no way even to see a direction in which that could be done). By that logic you could throw out all the laws of science or any other conclusion you have, since maybe the inferences that led to them, and even the scientific method underlying them, will be refuted in the future? That isn’t serious. It basically says you can’t use our logic in any field or context because maybe someday it will be shown to be wrong.
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Questioner:
There is a difference between the proof of God and laws of nature like gravity. Because laws of nature can be subjected to empirical testing and attempts at refutation.
Sorry it’s taking me a long time to answer—I’m just looking for things against what you’re claiming.
Again, thanks for the answers 🙂
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Rabbi:
Obviously the claim that God exists is not scientific. I wrote that myself in the booklet. So what?
Let me remind you of the context: there is a good philosophical argument for His existence, and you said that maybe someday science will explain it. I answered that it’s ridiculous to reject a good argument with such a claim, and I didn’t understand what is not agreed upon in that.
By the way, even regarding laws of nature it’s not really clear that they can be subjected to a test of falsification. There is always the possibility of ad hoc arguments, and always the possibility of an alternative theory that also explains all the facts. As is well known, if something has not been refuted, that is not proof of its truth. The existence of God also has not been refuted.
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Questioner:
Rabbi, is your offer to talk still open? Can we set up a meeting?
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Rabbi:
Yes. Arrange it with me by phone: 052-3320543
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Questioner:

Hello Rabbi.

Again, thank you for our meeting yesterday.
I wanted to ask whether you know of a serious atheist philosopher who would be willing to talk with me by email or in person, the way you do?
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Rabbi:
No. Maybe through the websites?
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Questioner:
I’ll try. Is there a particular website you know of, or should I just search?
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Rabbi:
I know there’s a site called “Hofesh.” Not very impressive in my understanding, though I haven’t looked into it deeply.
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Questioner:

Hello Rabbi.

Regarding the claim that one cannot derive binding morality from facts without God.
I saw that Yeshayahu Leibowitz wrote that even with God there is no answer here to binding morality, and that this too is a “decision.”
I wanted to ask what you think.
And if I understood correctly, the reason he says this is because we can also ask about God: “And who says God is right?”
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Rabbi:
Of course there is no possibility of proving moral obligation. My claim is that only faith allows such obligation (but does not force it).
This also has nothing to do with the question of whether He is right, but whether His command is binding. That is the meaning of “decision” in my opinion (an axiom that cannot be grounded in principles prior to it, but not an arbitrary decision). Leibowitz was confused on this issue because of the limitations imposed on him by his positivism (positivists are unable to recognize that there are principles that are true without proof, and therefore they confuse “unproven” with “arbitrary”).
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Questioner:
I didn’t really understand—can you give an example of how morality with God is binding, and how a command without God is not binding?
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Rabbi:
See the fourth booklet, part three.
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Questioner:
Hello Rabbi, every time I talk to you about morality I become convinced that it could be a proof,
then I talk to some nice atheist guy who agreed to help me, and he convinces me that one cannot bring proof from morality.
Then I come back and talk to you, and so on and so forth.
I don’t know whether this is a normal request or an excessive one—I know you are very busy—but the issue is really burning in me.
I wanted to ask: if you have time to meet with me and with him, you can talk to each other and I’ll sit and decide which side I take, or we can do a conference call together on the phone,
whatever is more convenient for you.
That guy agreed (after I pestered him a bit :)) and he thinks very highly of you.
I’d be very happy if the answer is yes, but I’ll understand if it’s no.
Besides that, thank you very much for the answers and the meeting so far—it’s not something I take for granted.
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Rabbi:
You can come to my house in Lod. Coordinate a time with me here or by phone. I’m currently on break with a flexible schedule.
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Questioner:

Hello Rabbi.

Again, thank you for meeting with me and Shay at your home.
I’m speaking with a neuroscientist. I presented to him the psychophysical problem, from which it seems there is a soul. He answered me that true, at present science has no answer for how there is that “mental” thing, but that’s only in the physics we know today. I told him that it doesn’t seem right to me to refute an argument with the counterclaim that “maybe they’ll still find a different answer.” And he answered that if I understood physics better, I’d know that physics changes, just as in physics before Einstein there were different laws than in the physics after him. It’s not the same physics, and therefore there can be, and very likely will be, many more changes.
Besides that, he claimed: “It is a fact (that the ‘mental’ exists) that we are witnesses to, but we have no external way, outside ourselves, to verify it.”
What do you think?
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Rabbi:
One can always claim that physics will yet change and explanations for everything will be found. But to argue from that that there is only matter seems problematic to me. Especially since in today’s physics the problem is not lack of knowledge; there isn’t even a language that can describe the emergence of the mental from the material brain. Physics does indeed change, but on that basis I can also claim that there are fairies, and the fact that physics today doesn’t know how to explain that is only because it hasn’t changed enough yet. That is a pretty weak basis for arguments.

I didn’t understand what it means that we have no external way to verify the mental. Do you have an external way to verify that there is a chair next to you? You know it because in your consciousness there is a picture of the chair. And every verification too is based on something else that will be in your consciousness. In the prologue to the book I explained (as in our conversation) that Descartes’ cogito showed that our trust in the mental precedes our trust in the material, since our knowledge that there is matter is based on the fact that our consciousness recognizes it.
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Questioner:

Thank you very much for the answer.

Two questions:
1. Does the conclusion that we have a soul bring us closer to recognizing that there is a God, beyond the fact that we now understand that not everything in the world is materialistic? For example, maybe one could say that the soul must come to us from somewhere, or something else you’ve thought of?

2. In your booklet “From Deism to Theism” you write that if we accept that God is the one who gives morality its validity, then one can derive from this that morality is not enough, because if the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world for a certain purpose, it cannot be a moral purpose,
“If the purpose of creation were moral improvement, then what’s the point of it?! It would have been better not to create us at all, and then there would have been no need for improvement”… “for the true purpose of created human beings must be found outside them.”
The same could be said about the commandments: what need does God have for us to do them? And if you say it is in order to do us good, then one could also say that if He had not created us, we would not have needed good.

Also from within Judaism I know other things—that the purpose is to cleave to Him, and how does one walk after the Divine Presence? “Just as He is merciful, so you be merciful…”
“He has told you, O man, what is good, and what the Lord requires of you: only to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God.”
And Maimonides at the end of Guide for the Perplexed, etc.—and I’m sure you know more examples than I do.
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Rabbi:
1. Indeed. Both arguments are correct.
2. The difference is that in morality the goal is to improve ourselves. But we are the ones who were created. The commandments do not improve us (that is my assumption), and therefore they may have a purpose outside the created world. They benefit the Holy One, blessed be He, Himself (in the sense of “Give strength to God” or “the secret of worship: a need on high”).
3. There is a commandment to cleave to Him, but that doesn’t mean that this is our destiny and that this is why we were created. In addition, even if our destiny is to cleave to Him, that is still the goal we are supposed to set before ourselves. But that cleaving can achieve other goals for the sake of which this whole process was created (we ourselves, and setting before us the destiny of cleaving to the Holy One, blessed be He).
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Questioner:
How can one say that the commandments benefit the Holy One, blessed be He?
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Rabbi:
Carefully.
And seriously, this is what is called “the secret of worship: a need on high.” If it doesn’t benefit Him, why did He do it? Rabbi Isaac Luria opens Etz Chaim by saying that the Holy One, blessed be He, wanted to reveal and actualize His names. That too is a kind of benefit for Him.

See the discussion on perfection and self-perfection at the end of my article here:
https://mikyab.net/%d7%9b%d7%aa%d7%91%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%9e%d7%90%d7%9e%d7%a8%d7%99%d7%9d/%d7%97%d7%99%d7%a6%d7%95-%d7%a9%d7%9c-%d7%96%d7%99%d7%a0%d7%95%d7%9f-%d7%95%d7%94%d7%a4%d7%99%d7%a1%d7%99%d7%a7%d7%94-%d7%94%d7%9e%d7%95%d7%93%d7%a8%d7%a0%d7%99%d7%aa1/It comes out that the Holy One, blessed be He’s ability to perfect Himself depends on us, and therefore He needs us.

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Questioner:
A few questions:
1. Regarding God’s self-perfection, it sounds to me like the statement “it is the nature of the good to do good,” but the question asked about that, and also about your theory, is: why are things that way?

Why is that the nature? And why would the perfect need to perfect itself? If we say it’s simply logical, then was God compelled to create the world?

2. Another question that came up for me while thinking about what you wrote is:

What happened “all of a sudden” that God decided to create the world? Why didn’t it happen before?

3. I also wanted to ask regarding the conversation we had at your house:

What is the reason that murder is forbidden, for example, on the moral level? Is it an axiom? Because God commanded it? Or for rational reasons like “find a law that you would want to become a universal law”?
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Rabbi:

1. There is not and cannot be an answer to the question “why?” with respect to values. A value is a value, that’s just how it is. Every chain of reasoning begins at a point that is supposed to be self-understood; otherwise the chain is infinite and there is no reasoning here. The foundational point in ethics is values. From them the chain of reasoning begins, and therefore the question why a value is binding has no meaning. Someone who doesn’t understand this suffers from a kind of blindness, and it’s like being unable to explain to a blind person what seeing is. The claim that one of the perfections is self-perfection seems self-understood to me. If not to you, then not. And from that, if the Holy One, blessed be He, is perfect, He cannot perfect Himself—but then He is not perfect (because self-perfection is one of the perfections). The only possibility is to say that He perfects Himself through us. And indeed it seems that God was compelled (from His nature, not because of external coercion) to create the world. Just as He is bound by the laws of logic, which is not subjection in the way being subject to laws of nature is.
This is like asking why He must be perfect. Can He become imperfect? The answer is no. His nature compels Him to be perfect and not to change in this regard.

2. He was compelled, and it didn’t happen suddenly. The question why it happened at a certain moment in time is not necessarily well-defined. After all, time itself was created with the Big Bang, and there was no time before that. Therefore it could not have happened “before,” because there was no “before.”
3. See 1. A value is binding by itself. There is no prior reason that grounds it. You can always cast doubt on first principles, but then by definition there is no answer. That is skepticism. Religiously speaking, values are binding both in themselves and because God commanded them. However, in my fourth booklet (and I think also in our conversation) I explained that without God there is no morality.

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Questioner:

I didn’t understand what counts as a value. For example, is not murdering a value? And if an ISIS person tells me that for him the value is yes to murder, and he’ll even tell me that his god told him to do it and thereby give validity to his obligation—do we simply say he’s crazy? And if we go down to lower resolutions, like euthanasia, there too do we tell the other side they’re crazy? How does one determine what is a value?

Is the statement that “one of the perfections is self-perfection” also considered a value?
2. I’m not sure I understand the words “there was no time,” but once I asked you whether the argument that “before the Big Bang there was no time” undermines the cosmological proof, and you answered that in your opinion one can still ask the question what was before. Isn’t this the same case?
3. I understood the argument that “if there is no God, there is no morality.” I’m trying to understand how we can know what morality it is that God commanded.

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Rabbi:

Your question is not how one determines what a value is, but how one persuades someone about it or how one argues about it. That is a completely different question. How does one determine axioms in geometry? One simply looks, thinks, and reaches an intuitive conclusion. Values are determined through moral intuition (answer to 3). When there is disagreement about them—we argue. In my book Truth and Unstable I explained that argument over values takes place within the framework of rhetoric (which is something different from demagoguery, despite the slander against rhetoric) and not logic.

Self-perfection is a value. Regarding time before the Big Bang, that is currently debated, and depends on the question of whether there was something before our universe (other universes). But before the Holy One, blessed be He, created the universe(s), there was nothing, and then certainly there was no time.