Q&A: The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes
The scepter shall not depart from Judah, nor the ruler's staff from between his feet, until Shiloh comes
Question
Hello to the honorable Rabbi, with great respect and appreciation.
Not that I used this verse to prove to you the truth of the matter of the messiah from the Torah, since there are, as we know, many kinds of interpretations for every verse. But nevertheless I would like to ask you: do you not believe in the coming of the messiah? After all, in the words of the prophets too there appear various scenarios that hint at this, such as "each man shall sit under his vine and under his fig tree," and "nation shall not lift up sword against nation," and as you know there are other prophecies that speak about this as well. Also, when God says that He commanded to give this land to them, the sages expounded: to them it was said, and not to you; and on that basis, since "they" are all already buried, they inferred that resurrection of the dead is taught in the Torah.
I am not asking the honorable Rabbi what his opinion is; I am simply interested in why you do not believe in the World to Come and what follows from it. For if you are in doubt about the World to Come, why observe commandments at all? And more ironically, if the Holy One, blessed be He, created the world, why did He give the Torah in the first place? So that we should devote ourselves to it in this world and that's it? Did He not breathe a soul into us? Will it not return to its source?
Answer
Hello. As you wrote, the words of the prophets can be interpreted in many ways. Thus, for example, "all the days of your life" was interpreted as including the World to Come. So prophecies of this kind can also be interpreted similarly, and one cannot bring proof from them.
Therefore I have no position regarding the coming of the messiah and the World to Come. I simply do not know, and I have not been convinced that this tradition has an authoritative source going back to Sinai. If it is the product of the sages' reasoning, then I do not see it as something authoritative. Of course, I also do not know that it is not so.
Regarding observance of commandments, I will refer you to the words of Maimonides at the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance:
Halakhah 1
A person should not say: "I will fulfill the commandments of the Torah and occupy myself with its wisdom in order that I receive all the blessings written in it, or in order that I merit the life of the World to Come; and I will separate myself from the transgressions against which the Torah warned us in order that I be saved from the curses written in the Torah, or in order that I not be cut off from the life of the World to Come." It is not proper to serve God in this way, for one who serves in this way serves out of fear, and this is not the level of the prophets nor the level of the sages. God is served in this way only by the ignorant, women, and children, whom one trains to serve out of fear until their knowledge increases and they serve out of love.
Halakhah 2
One who serves out of love occupies himself with Torah and commandments and walks in the paths of wisdom not because of anything in the world, not out of fear of evil, and not in order to inherit the good, but does the truth because it is truth, and in the end the good comes because of it. This is a very great level, and not every sage attains it. It is the level of our father Abraham, whom the Holy One, blessed be He, called "My beloved," because he served only out of love. And this is the level that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us through Moses, as it is said: "And you shall love the Lord your God." And when a person loves God with the proper love, he will immediately perform all the commandments out of love.
I do not know why the Holy One, blessed be He, gave us the Torah. But apparently not for the sake of the World to Come. Apparently this is the proper repair of this world.
As for the soul, it is certainly possible—and even seems likely to me—that it will return to some sort of source, but I do not know what that is or what its nature is.
Discussion on Answer
This is not about being familiar with Maimonides. You raised the claim that there is no point in serving God without the World to Come and redemption, and I disagree with that (and Maimonides does too).
As I wrote, I have no position because I do not know whether this information came down from Sinai or not. There is a reasonable argument that the soul does not simply go to oblivion, but it is hard to draw conclusions from that. Precisely because it is logical, it is quite plausible that the sages established it based on reasoning and not on the basis of tradition. But to infer from logic that there will be redemption or that there is a World to Come sounds too speculative to me. The Holy One, blessed be He, acts in ways I do not understand, and perhaps here too it is so.
Indeed, I partially agree with you, but I will try to rephrase my question. Regarding a person's free choice concerning doing good or evil—or alternatively, a commandment or a transgression—it seems to me that you agree about that. But is not the entire basis of Torah and commandment founded on free choice and, as a result, reward and punishment?
Perhaps from a superficial point of view it seems that without reward and punishment—or even redemption—there is no point in observing the commandments, but I would still like you to try to address my question. Thank you.
Serving God is based on choice, but not necessarily on reward and punishment. After all, I wrote to you my view and Maimonides' view on the matter. What does this repeated going back to it add for us? I didn't understand what the question is.
I truly and sincerely want to know why you do not believe in the coming of the messiah and the like. After all, it is also written in Malachi: "Behold, I am sending you Elijah the prophet before the coming of the great and awesome day of the Lord"—and that is after Elijah the prophet died. And these are the words of prophets, not sages. And "On that day the Lord shall be one and His name one," meaning that all existence will be one with the Creator of the world, who was, is, and will be, and much more besides. So I truly wonder whether you believe in the Creator of the world and in His prophecies.
I have already explained what I had to explain.
Please answer me honestly—and this is not a critical or cynical question or anything of the sort. Because I learned certain things from you, I want to know: do you believe in God? And if so, is it the God of Abraham or the God of Einstein?
As for the question whether I believe, you can find the answer here on the site.
The God of Abraham or Einstein—you need to define what you mean. Einstein's God certainly not, since he does not impose commandments. Einstein probably did not believe in God at all in the personal sense.
But why is all this important? If you are looking for a source of authority, give up on me. If you learned something from me that convinced you, then why does it matter whether I am a heretic or not?
A complete heretic, or a heretic according to the sages and Maimonides? From your books—and not from this site—I conclude that you do believe in God. I don't know whether in the Lord, the Holy Trinity, or Buddha, but you do believe in something. And if in the end it is the God of Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, why then do you ignore verses that have not even been removed from their plain meaning, such as Ezekiel 17:1-12, what is called the vision of the dry bones, Isaiah 26:19—"Your dead shall live, my dead bodies shall arise; awake and sing, you who dwell in the dust," etc.; Daniel 12:2—"And many of those who sleep in the dust of the earth shall awake, these to everlasting life, and these to shame and everlasting contempt," etc.
"Then the Lord your God will restore your captivity and have compassion on you, and He will return and gather you from all the peoples where the Lord your God has scattered you. If your outcasts are at the ends of the heavens, from there the Lord your God will gather you, and from there He will take you. And the Lord your God will bring you to the land that your fathers possessed, and you shall possess it, and He will do you good and multiply you more than your fathers." Whether this is a parable or not, we see that as of today, after the ingathering, things have not gone better for us than for our fathers. And: "A shoot shall come forth from the stump of Jesse… and the spirit of the Lord shall rest upon him, the spirit of wisdom and understanding… and he shall judge the poor with righteousness… and he shall strike the earth with the rod of his mouth, and with the breath of his lips he shall slay the wicked… the wolf shall dwell with the lamb, and the leopard shall lie down with the kid… and on that day the root of Jesse, who stands as a banner for the peoples—to him shall the nations seek, and his resting place shall be glory." What does "he shall judge the poor with righteousness" mean? And in Ezekiel, "and David My servant shall be their prince forever"? And what about Ecclesiastes: "and the dust returns to the earth as it was, and the spirit returns to God who gave it"? And what about Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, of whom it says that they were gathered to their people?
I very much appreciate and respect you, Rabbi Abraham, but I know you as an inquisitive personality who does not stop in the middle, so why ignore everything that is written, and instead of simply saying as usual "I do not know"—which does not at all suit your methods—why not investigate? So the question truly arises for me: has Rabbi Abraham, from whom I learned faith among other things, lost his faith?
First, I am astonished by someone who believes in the God of Abraham and writes the Name in its letters. Second, I already explained that verses in Scripture and prophecy can be interpreted in all sorts of strange ways, and therefore it is hard to draw conclusions from them. That is also why I neither like nor see much value in studying them.
All your sources should be answered in the same way, and most of them are obscure, sealed, and contradictory. The sages already noted this regarding Ecclesiastes. And about this our rabbis said: train your tongue to say, "I do not know." Besides, these questions do not seem all that significant to me, and I also do not see a way to investigate and reach conclusions about them.
The honorable rabbi has indeed lost his once-simple faith, and now has somewhat different beliefs. That's all. But all this is merely curiosity, personally speaking, and therefore I do not find it worthwhile to discuss.
Understood. I will not trouble the Rabbi further except for two questions: do your books arguing against atheism still have value in your eyes? And do you define yourself as a theist?
Should I take the Rabbi's silence as agreement?
I would like to ask forgiveness of the honorable Rabbi if in his view I slipped into personal territory and nothing more, but I ask that you please try to answer my question.
Throughout Scripture we find, and not only there, certain punishment for certain people because of deeds they did. Sometimes we find this regarding an entire generation, as in the Flood with Noah, and so on and so on. My question is: if there really was specific punishment, does that mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, changed His policy? What about those atheists who, unfortunately, curse God's name and mock faith and believers and deliberately commit transgressions and spend their whole lives treating the Torah, the Creator, and faith with contempt? What about a person who murders for pleasure or even for a living, or even things like ISIS and the like—does justice not exist in creation? Will all these not receive their punishment? Will the murderer not be brought to judgment? And will the scoffing, contemptuous atheist not receive a slap of truth across his cheek?
First, I must rebuke you for calling a heretic "rabbi," someone of whom it is doubtful whether he believes in God at all. I protest that. An unbeliever is not worthy of being called rabbi.
As for your question, I have already explained here in the past my view that the Holy One, blessed be He, apparently does not intervene in the world, at least in our generations. But even aside from that, the question of why the righteous suffer is an ancient one, and it arose even in times when He did intervene, and by people who think He still intervenes in our day. And that too requires an answer—even without my assumption that He does not intervene.
The fact that He allows a person choice means that human beings can act as they decide, and there is no immediate response that negates that. There is also physical evil in the world, not only human evil, and there you could ask the question even more forcefully. Why are there tsunamis, epidemics, and the like? And to that too I have already answered here that in my opinion the Holy One, blessed be He, decided that the world should run according to fixed laws, and those laws have unavoidable side effects, some of them bad. It may be that there is no system of laws that will do exactly the same thing—because that is what the Holy One, blessed be He, wants—but without the bad side effects. Intervention that locally prevents a bad outcome each time is a disruption of conduct according to the laws, and therefore that too is not done.
Again I ask your forgiveness. I didn't quite understand how to digest the fact that you do not believe—or think—that the sages' interpretations of prophecy and the Torah are fully authentic, in light of the fact that you wrote books dealing with the laws of exposition and Talmudic logic and the like. I hope you will not misunderstand me.
But I do not mean the general issue necessarily, but specifically the particular point, as I mentioned above: regarding deniers of God, murderers, transgressors, agitators like the Hofesh site and Da'at Emet, etc., etc.—if they do not receive their punishment in this world, then according to your approach, will justice not be done in the end?
I deleted several messages that were written in inappropriate language and/or contained inappropriate references—not toward me.
I wrote books dealing with the laws of logic and midrash because I am trying to understand those sources as part of Torah study. That does not mean that the sages were always right or that no mistakes ever occurred among them.
As for whether justice will or will not be done, in this world or in the World to Come—I do not know.
Thank you, honorable Rabbi, for your response. I will mention that my appreciation for you is very great.
May it be God's will that we merit the complete redemption.
I know Maimonides' words on the subject; thank you for the reference. I simply know your logic, at least a little, and I admit that common sense is part of it. Are you refusing to formulate a position on the subject because it does not seem logical to you? For if the world was created by the Creator, then presumably it was created for a certain purpose. Or are you claiming that common sense is דווקא not involved here?