Answer

I tend to be very skeptical about it. Although Rabbi Yosef Karo was a wise man and seems very rational (see the last column on the site).
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Questioner:
So how do the rationality and wisdom fit together with these dubious stories? Maybe this connects דווקא to the Rabbi’s two columns before the last one, about having a complex evaluation of people?
And I didn’t understand how it connects to the last column—did the Rabbi mean that in the last column one sees that halakhic people are rational people?
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Rabbi:
The reference to the last column is because there I described the man of Jewish law as someone with a rational approach. Alongside that there is Maggid Mesharim, which really does connect us to the columns about a complex evaluation.
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Questioner:
I enjoyed the columns about a complex evaluation of people very much. I can accept that even great people messed up, and that indeed would not lessen my appreciation of them, and might even increase it.
But there is a limit. I can’t give weight to halakhic rulings written by a person who lived a lie and spread it to the public. This isn’t a one-time lapse or mistake; it’s a whole life of falsehood. Even if I myself were unsure about a certain point of Jewish law, I wouldn’t rely on such a person in deciding the law. (Maybe it’s possible that he didn’t write Maggid Mesharim?)
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Rabbi:
You don’t need to give weight to his words because of who said them. They should be considered on their own merits, not because of the speaker.
His halakhic rulings are rational and sensible, and there is no reason to ignore them because of Maggid Mesharim. You can leave that book as an open question.
The suggestion has already been raised that the book is not his, but I think the accepted view is that this is not correct.
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Questioner:
Unfortunately I still haven’t learned all the topics of the Shulchan Arukh myself— not even most of them—well enough to decide Jewish law on my own. In every topic that I haven’t yet studied myself, I temporarily rule (until I learn the topic) in accordance with one of the great halakhic decisors, and among them Rabbi Yosef Karo. Can I continue to rule according to him (in topics I still haven’t studied) after it turns out there is a reasonable chance that he lived in falsehood and spread it to the public?
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Rabbi:
Don’t get carried away. He did not live in falsehood, nor did he spread falsehood to the public. He (apparently) wrote a book that indeed seems strange and puzzling, but for some reason he probably thought there was truth in it. So what? You don’t like it, then don’t study that book and don’t pay attention to it.
Most of his life’s work was not the romance with his maggid, but his halakhic rulings, which passed the scrutiny of all the great halakhic decisors. You can absolutely follow him. If you find problems in his books of Jewish law, then you’ll need to think about another authority. In the meantime, you can be completely at ease.
I really feel embarrassed that I need to give approval to a halakhic giant like Rabbi Yosef Karo. I refer you again to the two columns on a complex evaluation.
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Questioner:
This sounds like evasion. There are three possibilities:
1. Maggid Mesharim is true. Then everything is fine.
2. Maggid Mesharim is not true, and Rabbi Yosef Karo knew it wasn’t true. Yet he wrote it anyway—that’s called lying. The book is a kind of diary that describes a long period in his life, so this isn’t a one-time lie; it is a sequence of lies about a period in his life—that’s called living a lie. And he wrote this book for the public—that’s called spreading falsehood.
3. Maggid Mesharim is not true, but Rabbi Yosef Karo thought it was true. What does that mean—was he having hallucinations?

Did Maggid Mesharim not pass the scrutiny of all the great halakhic decisors? And if it did, maybe that teaches that their scrutiny wasn’t much good?
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Rabbi:
Daniel, hello.
I’ll say again: you are getting completely carried away. I already wrote explicitly that my view is like your third possibility, and I do not see in that sufficient reason (or even the slightest reason) to disqualify Rabbi Yosef Karo and all of his Torah work. Newton also had hallucinations and strange beliefs—does that disqualify his physics?
The book Maggid Mesharim did not pass the scrutiny of the halakhic decisors, and nobody thinks it is part of the halakhic corpus. On the contrary, suspicions were raised that it is a forgery, precisely because people saw that it doesn’t fit Rabbi Yosef Karo or Jewish law at all.
So how do you get from this anecdote to disqualifying Rabbi Yosef Karo and all his work, and then all the halakhic decisors? With all due respect, this is just stubbornness with no basis whatsoever. Beyond that, we are just repeating ourselves over and over. I already wrote all this, and you wrote it too.
May you be sealed for a good year.
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Oren:
Following up on what’s being discussed here: why is the Rabbi skeptical about what is written in Maggid Mesharim? The Rabbi himself notes in the notebooks on faith that the mere fact that a certain phenomenon is strange or rare does not mean it should be rejected (otherwise, we would never have discovered many scientific discoveries). In addition, what is irrational about what is written there? Fine, if you were saying that what is written there has no halakhic validity, I would understand that. But why deny the truth of the revelation?

In addition, the revelation itself, as I understand it, does not contradict physical determinism, since it did not happen in the physical world, but in the consciousness of the author. So the revelation itself does not constitute a physical miracle or any breaking of the laws of nature.
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Rabbi:
Certainly I am not talking about a deviation from the laws of nature, but about a rare event that even when reported usually strikes me as illusory and not real. Rarity is a reason to be suspicious, even though it certainly is not enough by itself to rule it out. See my answer to Hizki just below here. I also added for him another consideration that stems from the unusual content.
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Hizki:
Hello,

Where does the boundary lie between mystical experiences that you would be skeptical of and phenomena that would sit well with you? I assume such a boundary exists, since after all “one of the foundations of religion is to know that God grants prophecy to human beings” (Maimonides there there).
Do you mean that you doubt the truth of such things because of reasons of charlatanism and the like, but you would not deny their possibility?
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Rabbi:
Hello Hizki.
Indeed, I do not deny the possibility. Still, I am skeptical about such “revelations” after the cessation of prophecy, especially because of the strange content. I also do not attribute this to charlatanism (because of the respect and esteem I have for Rabbi Yosef Karo), but to his mistake or illusion. And maybe it really happened, but I am skeptical.
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Hizki:
Thank you for the answer
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Yitzhak:
Hello,
Do you also have that same respect and esteem for the Ramchal, who as is known also underwent an identical experience?
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Rabbi:
I certainly respect him too, although he is much more suspect than Rabbi Yosef Karo because of his tendency toward mysticism and various oddities. He also was not a man of Jewish law who is presumed to be rational.
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Yitzhak:
Mesillat Yesharim actually seems to be a work with fairly rational thinking behind it…
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Rabbi:
It has parts like that, but it is not a model of rational thinking. Certainly not like the Beit Yosef and the Shulchan Arukh.
Besides that, he has many other works that are very far from that.
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Yitzhak:
Do you have another example offhand of a Torah-halakhic-philosophical work that is a “model” of rational thinking?
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Rabbi:
I didn’t understand the question. Almost every halakhic-analytical work is like that. Rashba and Maimonides and Ketzot HaChoshen and the Shakh and Shaarei Yosher and Rabbi Chaim, and many more.
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Avi:
For a long time I didn’t know what to make of Maggid Mesharim, and my attitude toward Rabbi Yosef Karo was very negative, until it became clear to me that opinions are divided as to whether Rabbi Yosef Karo wrote it or whether it is a forgery.
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Rabbi:
As I wrote, it is probably not a forgery, and nevertheless Rabbi Yosef Karo’s work fully deserves a respectful attitude. Like Newton and many others.
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Daniel:
And what about the revelations mentioned in the Talmud, like Elijah’s revelation to Rabbi Yosei at the beginning of tractate Berakhot?
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Rabbi:
I don’t know. As I’ve written here several times, there has been a change in how the Holy One, blessed be He, conducts history. Miracles, prophets, and revelations have disappeared. So it is hard to judge what once was, but I do not rule out that those revelations too were questionable (a parable or a hallucination).

And several commentators wrote about the Raavad’s words, “The holy spirit appeared in our study hall…,” that this is by way of parable (meaning to say that they had certainty and reached a clear conclusion). If I remember correctly, Rabbi Margaliot brought them in his introduction to his edition of Responsa from Heaven (I’m not sure).
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Daniel:
A parable is fine. But I don’t understand how the Rabbi so easily “accuses” the Tannaim and Rabbi Yosef Karo of hallucinations, as if it were a normal thing that every third person hallucinates revelations from time to time.
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Rabbi:
Hello Daniel.
1. I raised several possibilities in my remarks. Either in the past there really were such things. Second, parable. Third—hallucinations.
2. Give me a rough estimate: how many people were there in the world in the period of the Tannaim? How many Tannaim experienced various revelations? Let’s say for the sake of discussion ten. So if I accuse ten people of hallucinations (even if I really were accusing all of them of hallucinations—see 1), is that half the people in the world? It seems to me your world is a bit small.
3. What would you say about people who tell you today that they experienced a revelation of Elijah or a speaking angel? Wouldn’t you accuse them (or at least half of them) of hallucinations?
4. Maimonides relates to revelations in the Torah itself as a dream or a parable. So what should we say about revelations in the Talmud?