Thank you very much for the answer!
I also wanted to ask, more from a logical perspective—
If one accepts that there is a God who created the world, and it is reasonable that He had some purpose in doing so, and it makes sense that if He has a particular purpose then He would reveal Himself and convey His binding instructions to human beings—
why would He reveal Himself only to such a small group out of all humanity?
If the revelation at Mount Sinai is addressed to gentiles as well, how were gentiles on the other side of the world supposed to hear about it, and know what kind of service was required of them / what their mission was?
Or is the assumption that this was a revelation that took place before early human beings left Africa and spread throughout the rest of the world?

I don’t see the difficulty. First, He chose that group to lead the mission in the world, so He reveals Himself to it. Even within that group, He revealed Himself mainly to Moses our Teacher, who would pass it on to them. Second, He has policy considerations that I am not obliged to understand. To whom and how to reveal Himself is His decision. I once gave an example from a broken clock. There is Paley the priest’s proof for the existence of God: if we saw a clock lying on the floor, it would be clear to us that something so complex was made by someone and did not come about on its own. Therefore the world, which is even more complex, was certainly created by someone. Now think what would happen if the clock were broken, or a few minutes slow. I would wonder why the all-powerful clockmaker made it that way. Would that mean there is no clockmaker, that the clock came into being by itself? Obviously not. There is a clockmaker, because such a clock is very complex, but that clockmaker’s mind is apparently different from mine—especially since he is all-powerful and all-knowing, so pretending to understand all his considerations seems excessive. The same applies to the form of revelation. Even if in your opinion it would have made more sense to do a different kind of revelation, the required conclusion is that His mind is different from yours.
The gentiles were supposed to hear about it from us and/or seek out for themselves the task that would be imposed on them by their Creator. If there are those who did not hear about it, that only means that they or we failed in our role. But why go to faraway places? Even among the Jewish people today there are many who have not heard of the revelation and do not believe in it. That only means that we did not carry out our role properly. And it also means that people have free choice, and even if they heard of the revelation they can choose not to accept that information or the obligation that comes with it. The children of those who chose not to hear about the revelation are already like captured infants—they are not to blame for the fact that their forefathers sinned, or judged wrongly.

How would gentiles who did not experience the revelation and never heard of it—not they and not their ancestors—know that they have one single external Creator, who has certain expectations of them? Is it possible for the human mind to grasp both the existence of the one Creator and the mission He imposed on you, without revelation?
And if they were later told about the revelation, how would they know that this came from a true source and not from false prophets, without a revelatory event of their own?
I agree that I have no way of knowing God’s considerations, but I would understand the gentiles’ concern that it might be a lie.

I wrote that originally some of them did hear and chose to ignore it, and then their children no longer know of it—just like among the Jews. For example, all Christians and Muslims accept the event at Mount Sinai. And even someone who did not hear of it—that is a result of a failure in fulfilling the role.
Of course, nobody is supposed to arrive on their own at the conclusion that the Creator is one and that He wants us to put on tefillin. That was given to us through revelation.
If they are afraid it is a lie, that is of course a possibility, and then they would be under compulsion. Exactly like Jews who are afraid there was falsehood in the transmission of the tradition and the information about the revelation.

I’ll ask about edge cases—
If there are Native tribes in jungles / isolated villages in China / Hindus in India, etc., whose ancestors were not present anywhere near the event at Mount Sinai. They are too far away and too isolated, and have never heard of the idea of the one God. Is their present condition the result of a failure in role by all monotheists? And as a result, did the ignorant lose their chance to understand God’s purpose in their very existence?
Is there Jewish missionary activity whose role is to correct this situation?

I have no idea. One thing is clear: in their situation nobody will come with claims against them. One should remember that before the event at Mount Sinai, many generations of people lived when there was no revelation yet at all. There are ripening processes. And perhaps for those distant people, the ripening comes later.

Yes, of course I had no thought of blaming them.
I was wondering whether their lack of knowledge regarding monotheism has until now deprived them of the possibility of understanding the meaning of their existence.

Thank you for the answer!

Many people do not understand the meaning of their existence. There are many who think there is no meaning to their existence. That is not unique דווקא to those far away.
Maimonides, at the beginning of the Laws of Idolatry, describes how this phenomenon began. But in the generations afterward, the matter became entrenched and absorbed and seemed self-evident to everyone. They no longer had any chance to understand that they were mistaken. Different generations have a very significant influence on the generations that come after them (like the education parents give their children, which greatly affects their way of life and way of thinking).

If I understood correctly, the source of existential purpose is God, and whoever experienced revelation, or believed reports about it, received the purpose and the proper ways of conducting oneself in the world.

It just seems unlikely to me that anyone who was not present at the revelation and did not receive the news afterward—or alternatively, anyone who is considered “under compulsion” or “like a captured infant”—would be blocked from the possibility of understanding what “proper” conduct is in God’s eyes.
It looks as though God cares only about a small group of people to whom He gave His instructions, and the rest either receive relevant “commandments” from them or, if they never met them, they have to manage on their own.
It seems to depend very heavily on a person’s external circumstances, such as place of birth, environment, and education.
If someone was not born in the right place, are they just doomed—will they never know how God expects them to behave?

If religion is a human invention, that seems logical, because then the religious group would be so cohesive and so focused on itself. But if its source is divine, why would He choose one small group of human beings?
I understand that if one believes in God, then one cannot presume to understand His ways of acting, and therefore there is also no possibility of criticizing the belief itself and everything involved in it, such as the story of revelation.

I wrote that even someone who was not present could still have understood it. There were simply malfunctions along the way that prevented the information from reaching him. Beyond that, the gentiles’ task—to behave like human beings—is something everyone does understand. The details of Jewish law do not concern them anyway.
A great deal of our fate depends on the place in which we were born and in which we live. That is why a person has responsibility for and influence on his descendants as well. That is true economically, educationally, morally, and religiously. That is how the world is built.
As I explained, it makes sense to look at this as a mission given to humanity, not to each specific individual. Therefore the responsibility is on humanity, and it is not correct to examine it through this or that individual. The thesis of reincarnation is meant to solve the problem with regard to the individual person, the claim being that he gets another chance to carry out his personal tasks, at least if what he failed to do was not his fault. I have no idea whether that is true.
To conclude, let me clarify that it is absolutely possible to criticize everything. Faith is a synonym for knowledge, and it is exposed to all the tools of criticism just like any other kind of knowledge. My claim is not that one must not criticize. I simply do not accept the conclusions of the criticism. Think about the parable of the broken clock. When I conclude that even if it is broken, it is clear that there was a clockmaker—that is not “faith” in some subjective sense. It is a logical conclusion. There is no denial here of the possibility of criticism. There is a claim here that the criticism is mistaken.
In that sense, the common claim that faith does not subject itself to the test of critical thought stems from a secularism that is unwilling to subject itself to criticism. As if anyone who does not accept secular criticism is therefore acting irrationally. They are unwilling to take into account that they themselves may be irrational in their criticism—in other words, that they are making a logical mistake. I have already written to you before that in my opinion believers are far more rational and logical than atheists.

Thank you very much for the answer.
I’ll try to see if I understood—

Faith / knowledge that God exists can be developed independently, without revelation and without exposure to any religion.
That is through a line of thought like the clock analogy.
From that understanding, morality develops, along with a mission “to behave like human beings.”
And whoever was not “unlucky enough” to be born into the Jewish people can make do with that in order to fulfill his mission before God.

But why is it reasonable to believe that it was important to God to reveal Himself and give a distinct group of human beings specific laws that would be imposed only on them? If one can understand even without revelation that God exists, and that His existence commands us to behave morally.

And does that mean that Jewish law is His “real goal,” the Jews are the main players, and the rest of humanity are supporting actors?
That is a question without an answer, because we are human beings so we cannot really know what God’s true purpose is.

But it seems to me that in terms of mode of thinking, there is a principle that says that when there are different explanations for the same phenomenon, one should prefer the simpler of them. Is belief in a divine revelation that gave commandments of Jewish law to the Jews a simpler explanation than the idea that religion was a human invention?

Indeed, one can arrive at belief in God without revelation. According to our tradition, Abraham our Forefather arrived at it that way. But in practice, it seems to me that very many people do not reach that point without religious education that transmits the revelation to them. So the fact that people do not know about God is also a malfunction in the functioning of previous generations and of ours.
But as for the practical obligations imposed on gentiles—everyone can get to those. These are mainly principles of morality. Fortunately for us, people are not particularly brilliant philosophers, and they do not understand that without God there is no valid morality. So even if they do not believe in God, they are still committed to morality. The philosophers among them even develop bizarre arguments that ground morality without God. Cognitive dissonance. Bottom line, if gentiles keep this in practice, the malfunction is not all that terrible, because they are doing what they are supposed to do. Of course it is preferable to do so מתוך recognition of obligation to the divine command, but that was damaged because of the malfunction mentioned above.
From here comes the answer to your recurring question whether Jewish law is the main goal. Indeed it is, for the Jews. Gentiles need to behave morally. In that way the purpose of humanity as a whole is fulfilled, with each group doing what is imposed on it. Therefore it is not correct to infer from this that gentiles are blocked from the purpose of their existence. That is a way of looking at a person or a group in isolation, and I wrote above that this is not the correct way to look at it. One needs to look at humanity as a whole—does it fulfill its role or not?
By way of analogy, in our body there are different organs. The head has a leading role, and the other organs could complain: why should their share in fulfilling their role in creation be diminished? That would be a mistake, because the role is imposed on the whole body, and in order to fulfill it you need a head and the other organs. Just as among Jews there are priests and others, men and women, Torah scholars and others. Looking at an individual person or a group in isolation misses the whole point. Just as in an army it would be wrong to build it so that everyone is in the General Staff Reconnaissance Unit, and not even so that everyone is a combat soldier. Without combat-support personnel there is no war.
All this is from the Jewish perspective, which sees the Jews as the standard-bearers—the head among the organs of humanity. In my opinion this itself is an inward-facing perspective. Jews need to live this way, because it gives them motivation to carry out their mission. It does not necessarily mean that from the Holy One blessed be He’s point of view the Jews are the main thing and the others are the rest of the organs. Others think differently (Christians, Muslims), and from their perspective perhaps they are right. Everyone lives with the feeling that they are the main thing, and that way each person has motivation to perform his role as well as possible. But this addition is only my own view, and it is not accepted in Jewish thought.

As for revelation to a small group: I too tend to think that a broad revelation is more logical, but one should remember that the revelation did not transmit morality to us—that is, the universal obligations—but rather Jewish law, which is relevant only to Jews. Therefore revelation is needed mainly in order to believe in God, but in terms of practical obligations it is not important for gentiles. Be that as it may, even if broad revelation seems more logical to me, that is not enough to lead me to conclude that there was no revelation. That is where the broken-clock argument comes in.
And from here comes the answer to your final question. If all I had before me were the consideration of choosing between two options—broad revelation or limited revelation—I would say that broad revelation is more logical. But I have reached the conclusion that there is a God and that it is likely there was revelation from various other considerations, which in my eyes are quite strong. Against that background, even if broad revelation is more logical, that is not enough to undermine belief in God. That is exactly the broken-clock argument.
By analogy, think about what is more logical: that there is both an electric field and a magnetic field, or only an electric field? The second is simpler and more plausible. So does that mean there is no magnetic field? If I had to decide solely on the basis of comparing those two possibilities, I would conclude that indeed there is only an electric field. But there is good evidence that there is also a magnetic field, and therefore even though the one-field option is simpler, I do not choose it.

Why is a real divine revelation a more plausible source for a specific religion than human imagination?
And I do not mean belief in God’s existence, but only belief in the supposedly divine source of this religion.

If one uses the clock analogy, the logic is that a sophisticated machine has a maker, and that He also issued an instruction manual?
But if so, there is no need for a personal revelation by the maker for that…

I did not understand this question. Of course imagination can do that too. The question is what actually happened, not what could have happened. Our sight too could be produced by imagination. So does that mean sight is imagination? The question of whether this is imagination or revelation has to be examined on the basis of arguments and evidence, not on the basis of hypothetical suggestions. I elaborated on this in my book The First Existential. There too I explained the connection between belief in God and belief in Him as the source of revelation.

I also did not understand the last question. Revelation is precisely the delivery of the manufacturer’s instructions.
And I also did not make a comparison between a watchmaker and the maker of the world. The comparison dealt only with the inference to the existence of a maker. Who he is, how he acts, and what he does—that is a different matter.

My question is what is more plausible: that religion came from the human mind, or from God?
Like if I saw a fallen tree, it would seem more plausible to me that a strong wind had blown there than that people came and pushed it over.
When I see an orderly system of laws for a certain group, it seems more plausible to me that the people of that group legislated them than that God did.
But maybe that is only intuition, and intuitions can be mistaken. I really haven’t read enough about this.

I already answered above that the question is not framed correctly. We have additional data and considerations before us that serve as the background for examining the two alternatives (see the example of the magnetic field).

I really do need to read more about the data and considerations for the two alternatives. I think there is also a booklet of yours here on the site that discusses this.

In the magnetic field example, these are not two contradictory possibilities.
That is, both the existence of an electric field and the existence of a magnetic field are possible.
(I think at least; I know almost nothing about physics.)
But regarding the source of religion, these are two contradictory possibilities. Unless the Jews both invented the laws in their minds and God also transmitted those same laws to them through revelation.
Or a third possibility—that God programmed their minds so that they would invent the laws…

One argument I read in favor of revelation is that this was a mass revelation, and not a revelation to a lone prophet.

But it reminded me of something else I heard, namely that Arabs are considered unreliable witnesses (sorry for the political incorrectness).
That is, when people try to collect testimony from them, they will speak as if they were at the scene, as if the event happened to them, even if in fact they were not there. For example, if historians try to collect testimony regarding the evacuation of such-and-such village, people will provide testimony as though they were there, even though they only heard about it and were not actually there.

It may be that the testimonies about the revelation suffer from the same problem.

Likewise, if a person today were to murder his child because he claimed God told him to do so, similar to the Binding of Isaac, we probably would not accept that as a plausible possibility.

So why is the revelation event accepted as credible, and not as the beginning of yet another separatist sect?

The line of argument is more complex than that, and to discuss it one has to examine it as a whole. But even specifically your argument is weak. The fact that there are people who say about one group or another that it is unreliable—is that enough to cast doubt on every mass testimony? By that logic Napoleon and Julius Caesar didn’t exist either, nor did the Ein Gev Festival. That is not serious. If you want to discuss this seriously, you need to examine the full picture. In my book The First Existential you can find a fairly systematic discussion of the matter. Also in columns 671–673.

Thanks!

I agree that the false-testimony argument cannot be the main argument.
But I did not claim that nothing unusual happened at that event at all; rather, I cast doubt on the testimonies regarding what exactly was there.

It seems that in an extreme or unexplained experience, it is a natural human tendency to intensify even further what happened, or to look for a supernatural explanation.

For example, we experienced this directly at the beginning of the war—false testimonies from the massacre in the Gaza border region about dozens of beheaded babies, or a baby put into an oven and burned to death, and more and more.
Also after the Deir Yassin massacre, very exaggerated rumors were spread regarding the events.
And things like this tend to become fixed in the collective memory.

In terms of natural phenomena, for example the northern lights—the Inuit believed that the lights were the souls of the dead playing.
The phenomenon definitely occurred and they witnessed it, only their explanation of it was not correct.

But these are anecdotes, of course, and not serious systematic research.