Q&A: Question Following the Article ‘Scholar and Covenant Member’
Question Following the Article ‘Scholar and Covenant Member’
Question
Hello,
I read your article “Scholar and Covenant Member.” In the course of it, two points came up that seemed to me somewhat different from your position as I understand it today.
- The first point is the place of providence in the formation of the Oral Torah, and in particular in the sealing of the Talmud:
“The canonical text is removed from the authority of its author and reflects what divine providence has embedded within it.”
“The yeshiva student searches for the essential explanation, and that is the layer that providence embedded within the text, sometimes without the author’s awareness (see my aforementioned article), whereas the Talmudic scholar looks for the mechanistic explanations for the formation of the various Jewish laws.”
This position, of course, could easily completely negate the place of clarifying textual variants, unlike what you noted in that article. Beyond that, my impression is that you do not see the formation of the Oral Torah as accompanied by divine inspiration and any kind of providence, but only by the obligation of the sages to study and teach and explain the Jewish law, according to the best of their understanding.
- The story about Newton:
It would seem that Newton could believe that this really was a punishment he deserved for a sin he had committed in the past, and nevertheless seek a scientific explanation for the falling of objects toward the earth. These are two explanatory planes that exist in parallel, and neither touches the other by a hair’s breadth. The punishment imposed on him on the theological plane is carried out physically through the operation of the force of gravity.[10]
I understood that you do not believe in personal providence, except in the most exceptional cases. I assume therefore that you wrote this according to Newton’s view and not your own. Still, I did not understand the doubleness of the layers. Unlike the complexity between a philosophical plane and a psychological plane (someone leaving religion and someone returning in repentance) — here we are not talking about a combination of layers, but about a parallelism between them. If the Holy One, blessed be He, does not intervene in the world, and the only free cause is human will, then how could the apple’s fall constitute a punishment?
A possible solution would be if you argued that the choice to sit at a certain point at a certain time — “this came from the Lord” — then everything would be fine. But you refuse to introduce the point of providence at the cost of sometimes reducing free choice!?
Thank you!
Answer
Indeed, my opinion has changed on these points. The assumption that providence directs the Oral Torah does indeed faithfully represent the outlook in the study halls, and in that sense I think my words are correct. I myself am no longer there. Still, as a working assumption I accept it, since I still see little importance in clarifying textual versions.
As for the second point, there too my opinion has indeed changed (decreasing and going, like the bulls of the Festival). But I do not agree that there is necessarily a difference between the examples. In both, they can be parallels (that is apparently how people relate to it, even though it is difficult because a cause is a necessary condition and perhaps also sufficient) or complementarity and integration. See my book What Exists and What Does Not for a detailed discussion of this (and also a bit in Human as the Grass of the Field).
I’ll try to look into your book, but I didn’t understand the answer to the second question, and as you hinted, the difficulty still stands.
If we are talking about complementarity — fine (the Holy One, blessed be He, intervened in free choice and determined where to sit), but how can they be seen as parallel planes when each one constitutes a “closed solution.”
Praying for “we ascend in holiness and do not descend,” as the commandment of the day in Jewish law..