Answer

Hello.
Many thanks. If I may wax philosophical a bit (a reminder of the old days 🙂 ), I have always wondered whether values that a person does not acknowledge as existing grant him any right, or credit. I tend to think not. It seems to me that it’s also not accurate to call them values, since values are supposed to be the result of a choice or a conscious commitment. What is not conscious is perhaps character or inclination, but not values.
On the other hand, friendship does not have to be based on values; it can also be based on character and inclinations, and here, of course, things that exist within a person unconsciously also have a place.
 
As for my actual remarks about the additional part of the arsenal: I am currently writing three books (a trilogy: philosophy, Jewish thought—though in my view there is no such thing—and Jewish law) in which I present an updated and “lean” Jewish worldview (that is, without additions that do not stand the test of reasonableness and logic), from the ground up. It’s quite an ambitious project, and I undertook it because several people approached me and asked me to gather and organize many different things I have already written and said, things that are very unusual by the standards accepted in our circles (the religious crowd). The feeling is that there are many who think this way but cannot find a rabbi or any other authority who will anchor them in the sources and give them legitimacy (for some reason, some see me as such, through no fault of my own. I make sure to state that I am not an authority, and I do not recognize authorities at all. My arguments should be examined on their own merits, and one should decide independently whether to adopt or reject them).
Among other things, in the third book I devote quite a broad discussion to the idea of normative duality (= an additional arsenal of values beyond the religious one) and its possibility within religious thought.
Incidentally, I think this is one of the basic misunderstandings people have regarding my late Uncle Yeshayahu the Third. For example, when he said that morality is an atheistic category, many attacked him by saying that he acted contrary to that statement when he expressed moral-leftist criticism of the conduct of the state and society here. In my opinion, there is no contradiction there (although in my view he certainly had quite a few contradictions), simply because he was indeed committed to atheistic categories alongside his religious commitment. The common assumption is that a state of duality is impossible in religious thought, but that is not so.
 
And by the way, Yosef Agassi (whom I do not think all that highly of) wrote a very broad review of my book Truth and Unstable, and at the end he appointed me as the one to fill the place of the late Uncle Yeshayahu as the current national philosopher. An enormous compliment that made me blush.
 
Regards to the girls (actually, by now they’re probably already women),