I protest strongly, painfully, and with disappointment against the comparison between the Guide for the Perplexed and Kant and his friends.

Let me begin by saying that Rabbi Abraham’s honor is also very important to me. I do not think that behind a keyboard one is permitted to speak brazenly, God forbid, and of course I sign with my name. I would also have protested in a face-to-face lecture—as a rare but necessary step.
I would also have responded privately and not publicly, but unfortunately these harsh words were published, and the protest should stand next to them.

According to your approach, even the stories about Abraham our father in Genesis are not fixed Jewish law!
And what does that mean?..
I will not complete the argument out of respect for Torah; please understand my intent.

Did Kant and Wittgenstein serve Torah scholars? In what sense are they “Torah in the subject sense”?
And yes, I understood that you mean the “subject” is the learner, in whose case this contributes to understanding Torah, and not the author. That doesn’t change anything.
Maimonides’ great, immense, extraordinary, and exceedingly intense conscious attachment to revelation turns even his breakfast into Torah—real Torah. Interpretation of revelation. The normative significance of a role model. All the more so his pure book, the Guide for the Perplexed, which is an interpretation of the Written and Oral Torah—its entirety shapes practice, and it has dedicated chapters of practice! Whereas even Kant’s greatest intellectual acrobatics may be the opposite of morality and the will of God.

There is absolutely no justification or excuse for calling Kant “Torah”—God gave us Torah so that we should say a gentile philosopher is “Torah”?!
And then compare him to our rabbi!

Painful and shocking.

I am sure the intent was to convey a sharp and subtle idea about the difference between fixed Jewish law and thought, and to illustrate it as sharply as a scalpel so it would be clear. But it enters an alienated place (I am restraining myself). Not everything is permitted.

This is my first encounter with your writings. Please retract it (and then delete this comment of mine).
It is also possible that I completely misunderstood the Rabbi’s intention and the Rabbi did not mean any comparison at all. But then I bear only a small amount of contributory blame, and that does not remove the Rabbi’s responsibility not to express himself in a way that can be interpreted like this, and that arouses such feelings.
Faithful are the wounds of a friend.

Snir Harel
Ma’ale Adumim

Hello Snir. Feeling insulted is not a substitute for arguments. I fully stand behind my words, and of course you have every right to protest. The fact that Maimonides served Torah scholars does not make his medical determinations correct, and in my opinion the same applies to his philosophical determinations. That is all. If, Following this encounter, you conclude that my words hurt you, you are welcome not to continue reading. One of my and the site’s basic principles is that one may say anything as long as it is reasoned and well-founded. Insults play no role in determining what is true and what is not (though of course one should not say things just in order to hurt. But that is not the case here). I will add that at least for me personally, Kant contributes more to me than Maimonides and Aristotle in the areas of philosophy. Perhaps if Maimonides were alive today he would translate Kant into “Jewish” instead of Aristotle, and would thereby become more relevant for me.

I included three arguments in my words, negatively and positively: Abraham our father as words of thought that are core Torah; Maimonides served Torah scholars and therefore bears the non-verbal yet normatively binding quality of Torah; the Guide for the Perplexed is a book engaged in interpretation of revelation, also with normative implications.
And those things are absent in Kant and his group.

Should I express the feeling or remain restrained?
This is not a personal “insult,” but, to the best of my understanding, an insult that accords with the values of Torah.
Yes, my criticism is precisely that the comparison made has an emotional and experiential deficiency as well, and I will not let that get swallowed up among the arguments.

As for your final remark:
Maimonides in the Guide is an interpreter of Torah, of revelation. He is not “Judaizing” Aristotle, but saying where Aristotle was right (and appreciating that) and where he was badly mistaken. Aristotle was the relevant intellectual counterpart to Torah in those days.
Leibowitz, for example, takes Maimonides’ ideas and confronts them with Kant, and in effect zeros out Kant in value terms by virtue of values he finds in Maimonides—the meaning of serving God for its own sake.
The point is that Maimonides’ statement in the Guide is Torah-based and not Aristotelian, and even today one can find in his words in the Guide an understanding of what the will of God is—something that exists neither in Aristotle nor in Kant.

It’s just Maimonides’ opinion/understanding of the will of God, nothing more.

Not at all. The Guide is Maimonides’ interpretation of Torah and the Sages concerning the will of God.
It is important to see the difference between a person’s thoughts, “nothing more,” and a person’s thoughts that constitute a translation (human, yes) of content that entered reality from above.
There is nothing in the Guide that is not grounded in Torah and the Sages, including the physics and metaphysics, especially at the points where he disagrees with Aristotle.
In other words, it is a book of interpretation of revelation. Interpretation of the Written Torah and Oral Torah given at Sinai.

That is essentially different from a general thinker who just says what his opinion/understanding is of the will of God—incidentally, even from Abraham our father (who received retroactive confirmation when he was included in the Torah).

All the more so it is different from a thinker who is not even trying to say what the will of God is (unless this is only a matter of terminology). Values—which are the axioms of the discussion—are given over to free choice.

You wrote: “It is important to see the difference between a person’s thoughts, ‘nothing more,’ and a person’s thoughts that constitute a translation (human, yes) of content that entered reality from above.”

Could you explain:
1. What is the difference?
2. On what basis do you determine whether someone’s thought belongs to the first type or the second?
3. Are you claiming that Maimonides’ thought was not influenced by external philosophy—that is, that it would have remained the same had he not been exposed to Aristotle, or alternatively, had he been exposed to Kant?

Snir,

I must say I was very impressed by the following unintelligible sentence: “he bears the non-verbal yet normatively binding quality of Torah.” But unfortunately impressive sentences are not an argument. To persuade me you need to present arguments and reasons, not throw out slogans and feel insulted (in the name of Torah and its values).
I do not know which Torah scholars Maimonides served, but in any case serving Torah scholars is irrelevant to the discussion. I deal with the content of the words, not with the person who said them. Certainly not when it comes to a collection of inventions from his own mind, not from any sage he did or did not serve.

I didn’t ask you to let anything get swallowed up. I only said that in my opinion it is not relevant. If in your opinion it is—fine. Don’t hide anything you think or feel.

I disagree with you completely. Maimonides draws many of his principles and forms of thought from Aristotle and establishes them as though they were binding truths (including in the Mishneh Torah, in the laws of character traits and the foundations of Torah). The fact that there are things he rejects only means he was not a blind devotee.

I did not understand why your remark about Leibowitz is relevant (I do not agree with it).

Bottom line: the Mishnah does not move from its place.

All right.
Cold arguments.
For now, from the halakhic angle, even before addressing the conceptual structure you propose.

I am going to base everything that follows on Maimonides’ rulings in the laws of Torah study:

A third of the time devoted to Torah study should be spent learning Written Torah,
and a third Oral Torah.
The books of the Prophets and Writings are included in Written Torah,
and their interpretations are included in Oral Torah.

That means:
Interpretation of verses, such as the commentaries of Ibn Ezra, Nachmanides, Radak, and all the rest,
and of course aggadic midrashim as well,
all interpret verses.
And therefore they are all Oral Torah.
Check me against the commentators—is this what Maimonides meant? Then we can continue.

If there is a verse that deals with a philosophical subject, like most of the Torah up to “This month shall be for you,” much of the Torah generally, every rationale for a commandment that appears in the Torah—such as remembrance of the Exodus from Egypt, etc.—and all of the Prophets and Writings—all of these deal with thought, with beliefs and ideas.
Any interpretation of those verses will of course also be philosophical. The commentators will try to say what philosophical idea the author intended.

Please don’t get stuck challenging every example I brought; look for examples of philosophical verses—it should not be difficult. The simplest example is the book of Proverbs—it is entirely philosophy and ethical teaching.

So there are two difficulties for you:
A. When the Torah says, “The Rock, His work is perfect,” clearly that is a philosophical assertion. And clearly that is Torah, unlike Kant. And so too the stories of Abraham our father. They are thought written by God Himself.
B. When commentators seek to interpret that verse and others like it, they are considered, according to those halakhic rulings, Oral Torah.

The chapter in the Guide that deals with interpreting the verse “The Rock, His work is perfect” would also count as Oral Torah, for example. But the Guide is not the issue here; rather, all Torah-based thought that constitutes interpretation (authentic interpretation, meaning actually striving to interpret the author’s intention) of biblical verses.

Do you see the difference in halakhic status between this literature and Kant?

They are considered “Oral Torah” by virtue of being interpretations of the Hebrew Bible. They deal with thought because the Hebrew Bible deals with thought.
Kant is not considered Oral Torah.

Kant may perhaps help in the realm of “Talmud,” the development of human thought around the contents of revelation and creation.
But Kant is neither Written Torah nor Oral Torah, whereas Jewish thought is Oral Torah (= Mishnah), beyond also assisting in Talmud.

Written Torah and Oral Torah, according to Maimonides’ definition, are well-defined categories of writings, and books of Jewish thought are included in them insofar as they interpret verses throughout the Hebrew Bible. Perhaps he preceded you in defining the concepts “Torah in the object sense / subject sense,” perhaps not; I won’t get into that because I haven’t followed your words on the topic.

Talmud, according to Maimonides’ definition, is not a book at all, but the human act of thinking about the above two categories and about reality as a whole. So any book that helps clarify the truth can serve a person in his act of Talmud, without the book itself being Torah at all.

Summary: a book of Jewish thought is Oral Torah because it interprets verses. Kant does not interpret verses, and therefore is not Oral Torah.
Your words equating them are contrary to Jewish law.

Good, now at least it seems there are arguments here.
The fact that there are verses dealing with thought is obvious. You do not need to convince me of that, and that is not the dispute.
The first question is whether there is an orderly tradition concerning the interpretation of that thought, or whether each thinker chooses his ideas for himself out of his own reasoning and the influences of his surroundings. I hold the second option, and since that is so, the words of this or that thinker have no binding authority at all. And even if there were such a tradition, Maimonides himself writes that there is no authority in non-halakhic areas.

A second note: when Kant interprets the meaning of space and time, he too is interpreting verses in the Torah. He need not refer to verses, because he is interpreting concepts and ideas discussed in verses. As far as I am concerned, if he is right in his understanding of space and time, then that is the correct interpretation—not Maimonides’—even if Maimonides mentions verses and relates to them and Kant does not. That does not matter in the slightest. If you insist, then say that I now take Kant and interpret the verses through him, exactly as Maimonides did with Aristotle. So now, here you are, there is already a Kantian interpretation of the verses, and you can relax that this too was said as an interpretation of verses.
It seems that you attach the label “Torah” to an idea based on the intention of its thinker (whether he intended, when saying the idea, to interpret a verse), whereas I do not. What would you say about Christian interpretations of Torah verses? They too were said as interpretations of verses—so is that Torah?

And finally, where you got the idea that my words are contrary to Jewish law I have not merited to understand. At most you are claiming that they are not correct (and I disagree with you). Of course, even if they were contrary to Jewish law, that would not be very important, because if I think they are correct, then in my opinion they are correct whether or not they fit Jewish law.

As an immanent philosopher, it is hard to say of Kant that he stands in the tradition of revelation, and the same for Wittgenstein. It is harder to say that about Anselm, and likewise about the Christian commentators whom Abarbanel brings.

In any case, common practice agrees with Snir and not with you. We recite the blessings over Torah study for learning thought/faith/ethics and the like, but not over reading Kant and Wittgenstein. And in order to defend common practice against the death sentence of reason, I will try to make the following argument:

The revelation of Torah does not remain only at the level of Written Torah, but also exists in the Oral Torah of the sages. The sages themselves reveal the Torah in their understanding and according to their way. This is true in conceptual Talmudic analysis and also in faith. When a sage reveals to us the reason for a law—not in the sense of “the rationale of the verse,” but in the sense Rashi writes about at the beginning of Parashat Mishpatim—he reveals the Torah to us anew, and so there is here a renewed transmission of Torah. The Talmud says that at first the Torah is called God’s Torah, and in the end it is called his own Torah. And Rava wondered about people who stand before a Torah scroll but not before sages. The Torah does not end with Written Torah, but keeps rolling onward into Oral Torah. From here it is understood why “it is not in heaven,” and how new interpretive revolutions could occur every so often.

The Rabbi distinguishes between conceptual learning and faith, and sees conceptual learning as preparation for Jewish law. This is a very Hazon Ish-style approach, but an extreme one. There is something in learning Talmud that is not practical Jewish law, and the Rabbi himself brings such cases (for kiddushin of a woman…). On the other hand, in learning faith too there are aspects of practical Jewish law (the difference between the passive approach of Breslov Hasidim and the activism of Rabbi Kook’s students, for example). In my opinion, when a sage whose Torah is truly his own decides to say something, it makes no difference whether what he says is in Jewish law, conceptual analysis, or faith—in every case we are dealing with that sage’s revelation of Torah.

Sometimes sages decide to reveal their Torah in response to the perplexities of the generation. Sometimes they decide to base themselves on the wisdom of the age as a Torah statement (Maimonides in the laws of the foundations of Torah is an embarrassing example). In that situation they sometimes put themselves in a precarious position. It turned out that Aristotelian science was not well founded, and now one can ask what to do with Maimonides’ laws of the foundations of Torah in the Mishneh Torah. And still, it seems to me that even if Maimonides made a mistake, one should recite the blessings over Torah study on the laws of the foundations of Torah in the Mishneh Torah, and likewise on the Guide for the Perplexed. Even if Aristotelian science itself is false, Maimonides’ very approach already expresses to us Maimonides’ revelation of Torah, which is true for all generations.

Over the Critique of Pure Reason, the world’s custom has not been to recite the blessings, and when I read it at the university (certainly only superficially), I did not recite the blessings over Torah study. Kant is not part of revelation and does not see himself as part of revelation. Therefore to recite the blessings over Torah study on him is to interpret him in a way that betrays him and the purpose of his book. About Anselm of Canterbury one might wonder. At one point I tried to argue in one of the comments that since he is not Jewish, he is not part of revelation. But this is difficult, as the Rabbi challenged me. And perhaps one can say that there are two separate laws here: one law of “to engage in words of Torah,” which would apply even to him, and one law of “who gave the Torah,” which would not apply to him, and then one would need to recite only one blessing—“to engage in words of Torah”…

(On books of faith—watch out, a separate question is coming; on homiletics I am considering writing a comment on the Rabbi’s article. Have a pleasant day, Rabbi.)

I did not say that Kant advocated a tradition of revelation.
I did not say that common practice is with me. By the way, I am not sure you are right. In the classic yeshivot they did not study books of thought, and I doubt whether that was considered there actual Torah study over which one recites the blessing over Torah study.

As for the matter itself, issues of thought are usually factual domains, unlike Jewish law, which deals with norms (not facts). Since that is so, it makes no sense to say that sages reveal or create Torah in their interpretations. Take the issue of providence as an example. There is a debate over whether the Holy One supervises every detail among gentiles or animals. That is a factual question (either He does or He does not). What sense does it make to say that Maimonides’ or Saadia Gaon’s interpretation creates the Torah here? Do they change reality? In Jewish law one can say (and in a certain sense correctly, though this is not the place) that the interpretations of sages through the generations create Torah.

If Kant did not advocate a tradition of revelation, then what was the initial thought at all to recite the blessings over Torah study on him?

The world does not end with the “classic yeshivot.” With all due respect to Rabbi Chaim of Brisk, people studied books of thought before him and after him. The fact that the “classic yeshivot” did not place emphasis on those books does not turn them into non-Torah-study. Incidentally, the Mir Yeshiva in Shanghai printed quite a few books of thought and philosophy, which apparently interested the students there.

Your basic argument that this is a dispute in factual matters is, on second thought, a bit strange. If the matter can be clarified, then why argue about it? And if it cannot be clarified, then there is no dispute. It seems more that we are dealing with a dispute in the logical definition of God, as was common in the Middle Ages according to Aristotle’s approach (see Israel Robin’s new book What God Cannot Do). One may say that such disputes have outlived their usefulness, and one may say they have not (ibid.). But the basic claim that these are matters of fact, and therefore to dismiss them immediately, is not logical.

I am not saying these texts are perfect, and no doubt there is something a bit tiresome about reading them. Shalom Rosenberg writes in his introduction to the Kuzari that whereas in Maimonides there is at least some point in reviving Aristotle in order to understand the worldview Maimonides saw before his eyes, in the Kuzari it comes out almost ridiculous to revive Aristotle only in order to discover that Judah Halevi does not agree with him.

Certainly, most philosophical discussions are about values, not facts. And the purpose of all of them is value-oriented, without exception.

The Torah was given to us so that we would read it with the starting assumption that it speaks in our language and our style. Otherwise one could say that “no” means “yes.” (I shortened this because I’m relying on the assumption that this highly meaningful argument is understood and agreed upon.)

And when I read the Torah that way, I get the impression that almost every commandment has attached to it—or is self-evident against the background of the broad philosophical chapters in the Torah—a general value-based rationale.
And I read that God has general “ways,” which all the commandments are meant to express.
And I am supposed to clarify those ways philosophically, and walk in them.

Therefore, an author of a book that deals with clarifying the values of the Hebrew Bible, of the biblical authors (not clarifying “concepts”), and who does not hold a heretical view (as we understand Christians to be according to Jewish law)—that, and only that, is Torah.
That is: he interprets with the aim of fulfillment; he sincerely investigates what values appear there because they are his values, and he has no open and obvious corruptions of faith.

You need not get confused by the gray area. Maimonides says that “the books of the Prophets and Writings are included in Written Torah, and their interpretations are included in Oral Torah.”
You are welcome to interpret Maimonides for yourself—does he include in this definition (of Torah in the object sense) Christians as well? And books of grammar and terminology that have never heard of the Hebrew Bible?

There is a gray area that raises questions. But I do not think Christians, or anyone who does not accept the basic principles of Judaism, or mere interpreters of concepts (and not of the values of the biblical authors!!) are included in his list.

It is easy for me to see that this is Maimonides’ intention in his halakhic text. These are easy cases, not gray-area cases.

Value topics in books of thought:

What the concept of “good” means.
What the purpose of life is.
What the concept of “holiness” means, and what is required of us in “You shall be holy,” “and you shall do what is upright and good.”
What are “kindness, justice, and righteousness in the land”?

Why does God want us to observe the commandments?
– This question has practical implications for the intention of the commandment.
– For the pious enhancements and beautifications bound up with it—which direction to take them.
– And of course, for the halakhic midrashim.

For example: “And he shall place it in her hand”—“and he shall place” means in any place; “in her hand” means specifically in her hand. (Sifrei Devarim)

What compelled the sages to interpret it that way? Clearly they saw a value conflict between the need to enable divorce easily (“in any place”) and the need to ensure that the woman has proof (“specifically in her hand”).
And therefore they ruled: to include her roof, courtyard, and enclosed area—a decision between competing values.
Let’s not argue over the example if you find the principle worth thinking about (or if you agree with it from the outset).

All this is thought.

Even the issue of providence over animals interests us purely from the value angle, as Maimonides says in Guide 3:17 or around there—“for this reason we were permitted to slaughter them,” because they are not under providence. The fact is not the issue in dispute here, but the value embedded in the concept of “providence.” After all, we walk in God’s ways, so the whole discussion is whether we too should exercise individual providence over animals.

Let me emphasize that I am not saying that the mode of decision and the weight of the author’s authority in such questions is identical to their place in halakhic questions.
(Although this should be discussed; Henshke says that Maimonides certainly did not mean that there is no decision in matters of thought.
In the Book of Commandments there are five commandments that are “to believe that…”)
I am saying that this is Torah in the object sense, and Kant is not.

Y.D. and Snir,
I’ll answer briefly, since I’ve already explained my position.
It really does not matter whether the factual discussion is intended for value clarification. As long as it is factual clarification, authority is irrelevant to it. It also does not matter whether these facts can be clarified in some other way. If these are facts, the way to clarify them is not by studying the Guide or Saadia Gaon. Clarify them however you want—exactly as Maimonides and Saadia Gaon themselves did.
The specific questions connected to Jewish law and Torah (like “and place it in her hand”) did not occupy the philosophers, so of course there is no point in studying Kant there. What does all this have to do with our discussion? On the other hand, Maimonides has no authority even in such questions. The factual questions I was speaking about are the general philosophical questions, and with regard to them I said that Kant is like Maimonides in this respect.
I have already explained that it is of no importance whatsoever from whose womb the words emerged or what his motivations were. What matters is what was said and whether it is true. It can be a Christian, a demon, an angel, an Eskimo, or a cat.
As for the Lithuanian yeshivot, of course they are not the whole picture, but when you said that my words go against tradition and what is accepted among the Jewish people, I brought you a contrary example. That is all.

I brought many examples of things that have no connection at all to reality, but only to values. In particular—the ways of God, what their essence is. This is clarified in the Guide and in other books of course. Also the reasons for the commandments—content explicitly mentioned in the Torah.
The connection to halakhic midrash is that thought about the reasons for the commandments guides the sages in how to interpret halakhic midrash. Which direction to take the words “and he shall place” and “in her hand,” and how to connect them. Do you really think that is written in the verse—that the language of the verse compelled them to infer “her roof, her courtyard, and her enclosed area”?
No, it is philosophical clarification. It interprets the words of the verse; it is not artificially dependent on them.

To sum up, I want to say that I greatly appreciate the way you stood firm against:
A. The claim that your words are shocking and painful.
B. The claim that your words go against Jewish law.
C. The claim that your words are not accepted among the Jewish people.

And you stuck to, and demanded from us, sticking to arguments.

I see such honesty as a sanctification of God’s name.

Still, I think the above three claims are still true regarding your words.

I happened upon this place by chance, and I hope we were privileged to achieve an important clarification about the essence of Torah in advance of Shavuot.
Jewish law and thought (in the sense of values, not facts) are intertwined and bound together in Written Torah. The attempt to say that in Oral Torah the situation is different is forced and mechanical, and I hope I demonstrated, with some elaboration, that this is not so.

In your straightforward style you gave me the feeling that there is someone to talk to and that it is worth investing in writing, and for that—more power to you.
That is what I gained from here.
All the best.

Oh yes,
in your words you mentioned the principle on which you rely in cutting the aggadic part away from the tradition of Oral Torah and its authority: “The first question is whether there is an orderly tradition concerning the interpretation of that thought, or whether each thinker chooses his ideas for himself out of his own reasoning and the influences of his surroundings. I hold the second option…”

Let us examine the meaning of your words.
Moses received Torah from Sinai.
The Oral Torah is the interpretation of the Written Torah; God explained the Torah to Moses and ensured his understanding.
You agree that God explained to Moses the philosophical domain in the Torah as well, not only the halakhic domain. To divide them here is really artificial and illogical.
That means that value-content entered our reality from God, not only behavioral commands—both in Written Torah and, necessarily, in its interpretation, the Oral Torah.

Moses stored in his mind an understanding of the interpretation of both the halakhic part of Torah and the philosophical part—contents that penetrated the world from above, from God.
He passed it to Joshua.
Joshua to the elders.
The elders to the prophets.

Up to this point you agree. But in your opinion, somewhere in the chain someone was negligent and no longer passed on the philosophical tradition, but only dry laws.
Someone in the chain became a technocratic robot and did not think there was any significance to transmitting explanatory conceptual content (which had been handed to him from God through the chain!!), or he failed to do so.
Somewhere in the chain of transmission there was, on your view, a generation that in no way resembled “an angel of the Lord of Hosts.”

And then a few generations passed, we came to our senses, and began to think up religious ideas on our own. Without any connection to Sinai.

That is what follows from your words.

I believe no generation was negligent, and that they always knew that thought and belief encompass and guide action, and they transmitted the philosophical contents given to Moses at Sinai.

I believe those contents are still with us today.

Therefore I make the effort to learn from my rabbis.
Therefore I make the effort to study specifically Jewish books of thought.

General books of thought may contribute to human thinking. They do not transmit to me the values that Moses our teacher understood when God explained to him, and that our ancestors were careful in faith to ensure would reach us.

All the best.

I simply do not accept the claim that this is a dispute about reality (that is, about facts). To claim that a dispute in matters of faith is a dispute about reality is to claim that the disputants are a bunch of idiots arguing over something that either can be clarified by empirical investigation—in which case why are they wasting our time—or cannot be clarified, in which case intellectual honesty should require them to admit that they have no ability to decide the matter. Since we know them and know that they are not idiots and that they have intellectual honesty, apparently their dispute is not a dispute about facts.

If you want to keep arguing that way, good luck, but note that you are portraying them as a bunch of idiots arguing over something they have no ability to decide just because they feel like it.

Hello Snir.
These a priori arguments carry no weight against the facts. Read the Maharal and tell me whether his words are rooted in the tradition of earlier generations or whether this is entirely new thought that emerged from him and from him alone, with even the terminology and basic principles invented by him. And the same regarding Maimonides in the Guide, Rabbi Tzadok, and other thinkers. One can continue to deny facts in the name of slogans (“surely there was a tradition, because it makes no sense that there wasn’t”), but that does not really persuade in the face of facts.

Y.D.,
I do not want to argue anything. I simply claim it. I did not say they were idiots. People who deal with issues that cannot be clarified empirically deal with them by means of arguments that seem logical to them. Mocking me or them will not help here.

Let’s put it differently. According to your approach, would one need to recite the blessings over Torah study on your own books on faith, or not?

Dear Y.D.,
Please avoid using a blunt word like that. Part of the discussion here is (for me) the importance of the proper emotional attitude toward people in general, and Torah scholars in particular. Not that it was said about anyone, God forbid, but it creates an atmosphere.

Rabbi,
So we’ve now arrived at the question: “Read Maharal / the Guide / Rabbi Tzadok and tell me whether you think it’s original or not.”

I’ve read a bit, and my plain impression is actually the exact opposite of what you seem to expect me to agree to as though ‘if only I would look honestly.’ I see here one unique Torah, very deep shared values, unique to Torah, which I already find in the Hebrew Bible, the Sages, through the medieval and later authorities you mentioned, and down to my own rabbis.
I see this through layers of different terminology and style, even radically so, and also through layers of different emphases from within the same totality, for reasons caused by time, situation, or personality.

It is clear to me (intellectually and empirically, not at all axiomatically) that the Maharal is an interpretation of the Prophets. I feel this strongly.

This is exactly what was meant by “no two prophets prophesy in the same style.”

It is evident in the ideas as well as in the nuances, verbal and non-verbal (they can be explained, but that is not relevant here).
I feel, as a simple and authentic experience (and after all, this is what you are asking now), that there is here one statement, one tradition, one developing school from Sinai.

And I did not assume this in advance. On the contrary—it surprised me. And it continues to surprise me from time to time.

We have different experiences in the face of the same phenomenon (Torah thought literature).
When I come to a case like this, my childish habit used to be to think the other person was fooling himself. Today I know to pay a lot of attention to such things.

Y.D.,
I don’t know. I suspect not, and the same applies to the Guide and to Kant. If one recites the blessing on Torah in the subject sense, then one should recite it on all of them.

Snir,
Indeed, completely different perceptions. My feeling is that these do not come close to each other, aside from a few simple and trivial principles, of course.

Obviously the views are different and they have a shared core, and it does not matter if you call it trivial—it is what distinguishes Jewish thought.
I of course disagree and hold that the common denominator that differentiates Torah writings from others reaches very deep and complex levels.
That does not contradict the fact that on top of this core there can be disputes; and even if no one opinion has authority, the whole corpus is Torah, while writings outside it do not possess that same core from Sinai and are not Torah.

We have a halakhic obligation to certain principles of faith, and one cannot sever faith from Jewish law. To provide background for that and then examples, I append a note on Guide 1:50—the concept of faith (in the sense of establishing an opinion):

Faith as a halakhic requirement

The concept of faith described in this chapter (faith that…) is not merely a philosophical concept describing a component in human psychology, but also a concept with binding halakhic status.
In the second chapter of the Eight Chapters, Maimonides argues that there are commandments that can be fulfilled by the intellect. The way to fulfill a commandment intellectually is through “faith,” in the sense of determining a correct opinion on the basis of thought:

“But I say that this faculty too (the intellectual faculty) can also involve obedience and rebellion,
according to belief in a false opinion or belief in a true opinion.”

Here we see that for Maimonides, faith is an active act of deciding how to view external reality. It is not a passive experience forced upon a person by the data he knows; rather, it contains an element of decision. If a person arrives at a faith that does not correspond to reality, this is called “heresy” (Guide 1:36), meaning he is measured by the objective truth as such.
At first glance this is difficult: if we are talking about an intelligible and reasoned belief, how can it be a matter of decision? Seemingly the data force the person what to believe!
This difficulty is incorrect, because man is not by nature a perfectly rational creature, but often behaves by misleading and deceiving himself. Faith as action is the decision and desire to be rational, to think about the data and reflect upon them From a desire and aspiration to arrive, on their basis, at the most probable worldview, or even the one required by them.
Leafing through the Book of Commandments (written in Arabic) will expose to us the list of commandments fulfilled through the intellectual-conscious act of “faith that…”:

Positive commandment 1 (faith in God’s existence)
The first commandment
is the commandment with which we were commanded to believe in divinity, namely: that we should believe that there is a cause and reason that is the agent of all existing things.
And this is His, may He be exalted, saying: “I am the Lord your God” (Exodus 20:2 and Deuteronomy 5:6).
And at the end of tractate Makkot…

{By the way, in the laws of the foundations of Torah, at the beginning of chapter 1, it is explicit that this commandment obligates us to believe that the Name of Being, absolute reality, is the name of divinity, the possessor of all powers. That is very specific; see there.}

Positive commandment 2 (belief in unity)
The second commandment
is the commandment with which we were commanded to believe in unity, namely that we should believe that the agent that exists in its first cause is one.
And this is His, may He be exalted, saying: “Hear O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is One” (Deuteronomy 6:4).
And in most midrashim you will find that they say…

{And all the chapters on attributes in the Guide are guidance for fulfilling this commandment. It does not matter whether they are authoritative or not—they are Torah!}

Positive commandment 4 (belief in fear—awe—this is how it is worded there)
The fourth commandment
is the commandment with which we were commanded to believe in fear and awe of Him, may He be exalted, and that we should not be complacent and secure, but rather feel apprehension at the coming of His punishment at all times.
And this is His, may He be exalted, saying: “The Lord your God shall you fear” (Deuteronomy 6:13).
And in the Talmud, tractate Sanhedrin, they said in give-and-take discussion…

Negative commandment 1 (not to believe in divinity for anything else)
It is the prohibition with which we were warned against believing in and attributing divinity to anything other than Him, may He be exalted.
And this is His saying—may He be exalted above having speech attributed to Him—“You shall have no other gods before Me” (Exodus 20:3). And this has already been explained at the end of Makkot…

Negative commandment 47 (not to stray after our hearts)
The 47th commandment
is the prohibition by which we were warned not to be free in our thoughts, to the point of believing opinions that contradict the opinions brought by the Torah; rather, we should limit our thought and place a boundary around it, so that it stands there—and these are the commandments and warnings of the Torah.
And this is His, may He be exalted, saying: “And you shall not stray after your hearts and after your eyes” (Numbers 15:39).
And the language of the Sifrei…
{One should not try to infer from Maimonides’ wording “the commandments and warnings of the Torah” as though in matters of faith and belief everything is open, for the previous four commandments in the list are in matters of thought. In any case, this prohibition is detailed in the Mishneh Torah, laws of idolatry chapter 2, regarding thought.}

This is a list of commandments counted among the 613, but there are many more halakhic commands whose fulfillment is not done by moving a bodily limb but by the conscious act of belief (such as intentions in prayer, oaths, blessings, sacrifices).

Even in the Shulchan Arukh there are specific commandments of belief—one should not think it represents a change of direction (Orach Chayim 5:1):
When reciting blessings, one should intend the meaning of the words. When mentioning the Name, one should intend the meaning of its reading as lordship, that He is Master of all, and one should intend in its written form with yod-heh that He was, is, and will be. And when mentioning “God,” one should intend that He is mighty, the possessor of power and the possessor of all powers.

Do we really need proofs that there are commandments dependent on the heart and not on actions? After all, there are the six constant commandments in Sefer HaChinukh at the beginning of Mishnah Berurah, and Maimonides’ introduction to the ninth root, and much more.
So what does that prove? There is that part which is clear and agreed upon (that there is a God, and that He created the world and chose us and gave us the Torah), and that was probably given in tradition. The rest (including the decision that He has no bodily form, for example) is the decision of the different halakhic decisors and thinkers (Maimonides and the Shulchan Arukh) from their own reasoning, or based on the reasoning of others. Where does the assumption come from that this obligates us? Maimonides also has the laws of the foundations of Torah and the laws of character traits. Are those too binding Jewish law? Must I accept that there are separate intellects and an active intellect, and that reality is built from the four elements (earth, wind, water, and fire) and other ancient and outdated matters? Or perhaps I must accept Maharal’s words that the number 8 is above nature and 7 is nature?

If you had only said there is no authority, I would not have responded.
I responded because you said that it is not Torah in the object sense.

Did anyone say you are obligated to a specific opinion?
And in Jewish law are you obligated to a specific opinion beyond the core?
And even there—you can disagree even with a Mishnah, and obey in practice only because of accepting authority and the need for national uniformity, but not, Heaven forbid, subordinate your own truth. (Though of course a humble person with experience will not rush to rejoice that he discovered everyone was wrong, but will check another hundred times. But yes indeed—see Abraham our father.)

The value system of the Hebrew Bible is unique and complex.
The Guide and the Maharal received from outside, or created, a certain terminology.
Obviously you are not obligated to their technical system of words and concepts, which was relevant for them, nor to the science accepted in their time.

But within the frameworks available to them, they spoke about the unique values of the Hebrew Bible and the Oral Torah.
They are immersed deep, deep in those values and absorbed them into their hearts. With their mouths they express them in the language of their generation, or in a language they found within themselves the talent to create.

How is this different from the halakhic ruling of Beit Hillel that it is permitted to kill lice on the Sabbath because they do not reproduce?
Is anyone obligating you to accept the fact that lice do not reproduce??
And because you know that is not reality, does that mean this halakhic ruling is not Torah?

Of course it is Torah!
It encodes within it a Torah value: if you find a creature that does not reproduce sexually, know that killing it is not a creative act forbidden on the Sabbath. Fascinating!

Likewise in the Guide—you find there the words and concepts of medieval philosophy, but they serve to present original Jewish ideas.

After all, the Written Torah too used concepts understandable to the people of that time: both linguistically and scientifically and conceptually—it was said in a way that integrates with our cognitive framework.

But the Canaanite and Egyptian building blocks (Written Torah), or the Aristotelian ones (the Guide), or the Maharalian ones, are used to express values that came in revelation!
To express them, and also to pour them from vessel to vessel in every generation so that this will suit the language of the generation and its concepts—not so that you will claim that once someone translated it into the language of the generation, it is no longer Torah; exactly the opposite! He did his job as a transmitter of tradition: extracting the values from the previous generation, internalizing the values until he fully grasped them, and then expressing them in the language of the new generation!
After all, don’t you do this too? Do you only innovate? Or do you also sometimes explain existing Jewish ideas in updated terminology?

And if each person took it in a different direction—how is that different from Jewish law?? Does the existence of disputes mean it is not Torah? These are all Torah directions; they are engaged in clarifying the values of Torah!

And if there is no practical decision—so what? Even in Jewish law, an opinion that was not ruled in practice is still Torah, and we study it and analyze it because it carries a message, it has a point, it has an important angle of vision—it is not nonsense.

What sustains your position is the thought that the shared value core is very shallow.
That the concept of “Torah values,” which one can indeed agree came in revelation and not from outside, is neither deep nor detailed.

But is the unique Jewish conception really shallow, God forbid?

Is it impossible to formulate a clear distinction on the issue of divine attributes between us and the Christians (a god capable of divorcing his wife!) or between us and the Muslims (a god who gives no place!)?
And what I just wrote is truly superficial. One can go much further than that. That is what one does when reading the verses about divine attributes—there is deep unique content there.
And then one reads the Sages on those verses,
and then the medieval and later authorities on them…
a distinctly Jewish and deep discussion of the essence of the Torah message God gave us through the revelation to Moses and the prophets.

I do not need to argue with you about the issue of obligation to descriptions of reality, because the issue of God’s ways according to the verses is not an issue of describing reality. There is no laboratory that can discover that God is really “merciful”… These are descriptions of the world of values underlying reality and reflected in the facts, not a description of the facts. True, one can arrive at this by thought built on a pure heart and upright intellect, but still no one grasped it fully until Moses revealed it to us in the cleft of the rock. And ever since, people discuss his words, develop them, and build on them with wisdom, understanding, and knowledge—again by means of a pure heart and upright intellect. They innovate and create on top of them. Not without them. Not without Moses.
Kant’s ethics, by contrast, is not aimed at understanding Moses’ mind, but comes from autonomous reason alone. Obviously Moses influenced him against his will, but that is not enough. What is needed is intention to interpret Moses’ words specifically. Specifically to rely on Sinai. Why? Because God spoke! God said that this is Torah—this too! We are not going to decide for Him what belongs to His domain and what does not, God forbid. He brought this field into it, expressed Himself in this field within the supernatural framework of Written Torah and its interpretation, Oral Torah.
And I am not speaking only about the list of the thirteen attributes, but in fact all the stories in the Torah are an arena of clash between different values, between God’s ways, and they clarify their essence and the order of priority among them. Everything from God, from Sinai.

Want another topic exactly like this? The reasons for the commandments!
So uniquely Jewish, and yet so detailed—for each and every commandment there are reasons that begin in the verses of the Torah and are discussed in a continuous line throughout the entire chain of transmission (and as I said—they define pious practices and embellishments, the world of intentions, and even the halakhic midrashim). With arguments, disputes, contradictions, and innovations—as befits a house of study! “Through storm they become beloved”—but do we ever actually reach any conclusion, or do we give up the effort to understand the secret of the Lord because we do not think this is even a house of study?
There must be a directed effort to understand the position of the Torah of Moses on issues of the ways of God and the reasons for the commandments, general and very numerous particular issues. The clarification is done with the help of the Sages, medieval authorities, and later authorities, who present a continuous chain of discussion connected at its first end to Moses and to God—like every Torah clarification! No laboratory can bring facts in these matters—this is revelation, and intellectual development of the contents of revelation. And the first interpretation of revelation was given directly to Moses by God—and this continues to be passed down to us. One only has to seek, seek among the transmitters, not with Kant. Not the values of Torah. If he helps you understand reality, you are welcome to express Torah values through his concepts (or those that seem relevant to you).
From sources outside Torah one learns reality, perhaps also a few human values built on an upright heart—but not Torah values.

Perhaps you’ll ask:
And if a person of another religion or no religion discusses these very matters—the ways of God and the reasons for the commandments—would that be Torah?
The question is not difficult for me; the same answer as in Jewish law!
After all, if he does not believe in these values, he does not think they are what one should choose, and he has not absorbed them directly through the personal example of his rabbis—then his discussion is highly unreliable. But it would be a shame to argue about it, because it is not absolute; this is a gray-area question. A certain difficulty in defining borderline cases does not at all blur the broader picture, in which it is clear that there is a very, very broad mainstream, with edges that are also legitimate, of Torah scholars who discuss Torah while accepting its premises and with real inner sincerity and honesty—and then it is Torah, in Jewish law and in aggadah.

Snir’s last comment really captured my heart.