Answer

Hello.
A. The Holy One, Blessed Be He, exists in exactly the same sense that we exist. The term "exists" describes material and spiritual entities in exactly the same sense. Occupying space is a property, not existence itself, so the two should not be confused. "Exists" is a basic concept that cannot be reduced to other concepts (after all, there have to be such concepts), but that does not mean there is something unclear about it. On the contrary: it is so clear and fundamental that other concepts can be based on it.
True, some people want to distinguish between necessary existence and existence, but in the appendix to my book Two Carts I argued that this distinction is mistaken. The element of existence is shared, and has the same meaning, in both contexts. The fact that the existence is necessary appears only in one of the contexts, but that does not change the nature of existence. Existence is part of ontology, whereas necessity belongs to logic.
I do not identify with Maimonides' ancient philosophical views, and it is difficult for me to defend them.
B. You are assuming emanation, but it is certainly possible that this is creation and not emanation. According to that, we did not come out of Him; we were created by Him. But even emanation could be considered. Something like this exists in the influence of our own spirit on the physical. Our will succeeds in moving electrons, as if there were a physical source of force here. In any case, even if we do not understand this, that is a lack of understanding, not a contradiction. Lack of understanding regarding divinity and creation is certainly to be expected, since we ourselves and our thought are part of creation, and therefore it is reasonable (though not necessary) that we will not succeed in understanding what lies at the foundation of our thinking and existence.
Sabbath peace, Michi
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Questioner:
Are basic concepts that cannot be reduced also impossible to characterize? That is, could one not say that a certain thing exists, meaning that it occupies area in space, and that this is not a reduction to a prior concept but a characterization of existence?
Emanation not necessarily—creation too—and in fact any connection between the spiritual and the physical would seemingly be impossible. (Can the psycho-physical problem be resolved by saying that the material and the spiritual are not divided dichotomously, but rather that there is a long scale, with the most spiritual at one end and the most physical at the other, and there are "gray" things in between through which there is a connection between the spiritual and the physical? And if so, would that also help regarding creation itself?)
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Rabbi:
I assume that such concepts can be characterized, even without reduction in the full sense. Certainly if one is willing to do so in circular ways (for example, to explain one concept by means of concepts derived from it. This is Quine's conception of the "conceptual web").
But I do not see why from here you identify existence with occupying space. In my view, an idea can also exist, and so can the Holy One, Blessed Be He, and so can the soul, and none of these occupies space. At most they affect entities that exist somewhere in space (like a soul affecting a particular body).
In principle, the psycho-physical problem can be resolved in this way, on two conditions: 1. that you convince me that such intermediate entities really do exist. 2. that this seems to you to be a satisfactory resolution (to me it does not. But in my opinion no resolution is needed anyway. In my view the spirit can move electrons, and I see no principled problem with that).
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Questioner:
I did not mean specifically the concept of existence, but rather, in principle, whether it is possible to characterize concepts even without explaining them by means of another concept. What led me to this was that I saw in your book Two Carts that every argument about a concept must stem from agreement about the concept's "matter," and I wanted to ask whether one can argue about a concept's characteristics without arguing about its essence. And further: can one not argue about something before us—whether it exists or not, or in what form it is—even if we do not agree that there exists at least some "matter" shared by both of us? (It may be that we are arguing about what is in the space before us, and we agree about the existence of space; only from that one cannot derive that concepts exist. Rather, we are arguing about the concept before us, as it were—whether it is not there, and if it is not there then it is absolutely "nothing," as Parmenides said.)
And one more short question: even if the "thing in itself" cannot be grasped, when we say of an object that it is green, are we not saying that its matter/essence is in some way that appears to us as the color green?
There is a sentence that recurs in many variations in the words of the early philosophers and the kabbalists, to the effect that God "does not exist as we exist." How does that fit with what you wrote?
Thank you.
I forgot to ask: how can a spirit move electrons? (I hope that understanding this does not require great knowledge of physics.)
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Rabbi:
1. I do not understand how one can characterize a concept without resorting to other concepts. To say that it exists is not a characterization but a reference to its essence. There is no such thing as an argument about essence. Every argument is about characteristics.
2. Correct. When we say that an object is green, we mean to say that there is something in it itself (= its crystalline structure) that causes it to appear green to us. I wrote this explicitly in the book.
3. The only difference is that He exists necessarily and we do not. I think that in the appendix to my book I pointed out that there is no difference in the meaning of the concept "existence" in the two contexts. In other words: the difference is in logic and not in ontology.
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Questioner:
A. The argument would proceed as follows: one person would say that the concept before us has such-and-such a form, and his fellow would say that it has some other form, but they agree on nothing except that there is a concept—not that there is some "matter" common to both sides of the argument. Rather, just as one can argue whether what is before us is a chair or a bench, and what is common to both sides is that there is something there—not an idea but an object—meaning there is some fundamental characteristic common to both sides of the argument. (For example, in an argument over who is a Jew, both sides agree—for the sake of illustration—that one must be born to a Jewish mother, though not that this is the concept's matter, but that it is its principal characteristic.) By the way, could it not be that being born to a Jewish mother is the essence of a Jew?
B. With your permission I will ask another question, one that has also troubled me for a long time.
Everyone knows that there are "schools and movements" in Judaism, such as Kelm, Novardok, Slabodka, etc. A small amount of study of these "ways" seems to show that they are nothing more than different styles of conduct—whether in an orderly way, or loosely, or with dignity—but in the end they do not touch Judaism itself, which is the 613 commandments. If so, do they have any religious content at all, or is it similar to someone going to a psychologist to be healed of the mental problem preventing him from fulfilling some commandment—in which case that act is merely an instrument, and likewise all these approaches are nothing more than practical advice to make observance of the commandments easier? And discussion about how to do them is merely an instrumental discussion and seemingly devoid of "value"?
And in practice, aside from fulfilling the commandments as required by Jewish law, is there no religious content to anything at all? Is it correct to narrow religion down that much?
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Rabbi:
A. If that is a characteristic, then when it is not agreed upon, nothing shared remains. It may be that being born to a Jewish mother is the essence of a Jew, but it seems not everyone agrees with that (by the way, there is also conversion). So how would you argue?
B. This is a semantic question. The main question is whether those approaches have importance in the service of God, or whether they are psychological phenomena. Put aside philosophical questions of substance and accident. In my opinion, it has religious significance as long as the person engaging in it does so for religious reasons. At the same time, there may be disagreement, or someone may not think one should act that way. And that is perfectly fine.
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Questioner:
It comes out, then, that all concepts are basic, since either A is B and B is a basic concept, or A is A—is that not so?
What exactly is the discussion when we try to characterize a concept? In the end it will be basic anyway. Seemingly we can only discuss whether this is indeed a concept in its own right, or just one aspect of a fuller concept. For example, why not say that the concept of ownership itself—which you discussed in the book in terms of its essence—is basic?
I mean to say that all these schools are technical aids, but there is nothing of value in how I conduct myself as such—only in how it makes it easier for me to fulfill the Torah?
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Rabbi:
I do not understand the question. Indeed there are basic concepts, and others are derived from them. In my opinion the concept of ownership is indeed a basic concept (and therefore it has "matter," meaning the concept in itself exists in the world of ideas). What I am trying to do is characterize it and prove that very point itself (namely, that it is a basic concept and not a bundle of rights).
The discussion of concepts is basically a discussion of distinctions and classifications: which are basic and which are derived, and from what the derived ones are derived and how. The purpose of the discussion is to help us contemplate the idea of the concept and thereby understand it. The descriptions are only auxiliary means for that.