Hello Rabbi Michael.
I don’t agree that truth and justice are on my side while they are mistaken.
Certainly not in the postmodern age we live in (and if memory serves me, you’re not especially enthusiastic about it either…).
I have my culture and they have theirs.
The question, in my view, of who is right and who is wrong is pretty meaningless.
In a certain sense—
what difference does it make?
How do I know what the objective truth is, if such a thing even exists?

Sabbath peace (and truthfully it’s a bit hard for me to disagree with you as your former student…)

Hello A.,
First of all, you are more than welcome to disagree with me about anything, just as I do with my teachers and other great sages.
As for your remarks, this is not a matter of taste. If you see your beliefs as culture alone (a matter of taste) and not as truth, then you are an atheist. The fact that you have some culture or certain feelings changes nothing at all. There are quite a few atheists who have a deep religious feeling. There are even some who live in a religious culture (for example, those who are today called “coerced Haredim”). Belief in God is holding the opinion that He exists, not some emotional experience or cultural phenomenon. And if you think God exists, then anyone who thinks He does not exist is, in your opinion, mistaken. That is simple logic and not a matter of taste.
One can of course ask a different question: am I sure that I am right? As for me, the answer is: absolutely not. I’m not sure of anything. But truth and certainty are two completely different things, something the postmodernists don’t really understand (and therefore in their view, if I’m not sure of my position, then all positions are equal and I’m a skeptic. That’s just philosophical nonsense).
In short, if you yourself don’t think justice is on your side, then you simply do not believe what you declare to be your belief. In that case, you and the atheist are only having different experiences, but philosophically and cognitively, both of you are atheists to the same extent.
See the second-to-last column on my site.
Sabbath peace,

Yes. I definitely know I’m invited to disagree with you. I also remember that you quoted the Hazon Ish several times as having told his students to rule according to their understanding of the medieval authorities (Rishonim) and not according to the Mishnah Berurah…

I’m not sure that “God exists” is an opinion. I’m not postmodern in the sense that all opinions are equal, but it seems to me that God’s existence is not on the rational plane, since “no thought can grasp Him at all,” but in a much more experiential-emotional-existential dimension, or whatever we want to call it…
I’ll read the column in a moment

It is entirely rational that He exists. Knowing His attributes and apprehending Him is a different discussion.
If it’s only an experience, then it has nothing to do with reality. As I said, that is atheism.

I read your column.
.
It seems to me that the root of the dispute between us [and presumably also in the dispute between you and the atheist you describe in your second-to-last column] is—
is God present in a transcendent way relative to the world, or in an immanent way?
Or, to put it differently: Maimonides or the Ramak [who coined the concept of “a portion of God above”]?
Maybe this is also the divine name Havayah as opposed to the name Elohim…

I think that to hold that God is in the world as an “opinion” can only work if we understand the word “opinion” in the Maimonidean sense, in the sense of an “attribute.”

With all my respect and great appreciation for Saadia Gaon and Maimonides [and other medieval authorities], may their rest be in Eden,
I think that treating the existence of God as something demonstrable in a quasi-ontological, proof-based way is rather passé and not really relevant.

Maybe you’ll say I’m an atheist, maybe not, it doesn’t really matter to me.

I feel the presence of Havayah in the world far beyond intellectual apprehension,
and as stated—therefore, “no thought can grasp Him at all.”

Have a good week

I’m having trouble following the sentences you’re writing. What does this have to do with the question of immanent or transcendent? And it also makes no difference at all whether thought can or cannot grasp Him. The question whether He exists or not is a factual question, and therefore the answer to it is binary (yes or no). How you arrive at the answer (through intellectual apprehension or otherwise) is your business and unrelated to the discussion. The question is not about the way one arrives at the answer but about the nature of the answer itself. If your answer is positive, then in your view God exists. And from that it follows that whoever does not think as you do is mistaken (according to your position). I didn’t understand what “opinion” means in this context, and who spoke about it. Why is it important?

On what basis do you think that the question whether God exists or does not exist is a factual matter?
How can one prove it at all?
After all, according to a significant number of the medieval authorities, “He has no bodily form and is not a body”…

Suppose I claim that there are ten billion ants in the world. There’s no way to prove that. So in your view, is that not a factual claim? And according to your approach, would someone who says there are twenty billion also be just as right as you? And there too, would it not be true that if you are right, then he is wrong?
The question whether something can be proven is unrelated to the question whether it is true. The truth of a claim is determined by comparing its content to the state of affairs in the world. Proof only brings that truth to my knowledge with certainty. Proof belongs to epistemology, whereas truth belongs to logic.
And the fact that He has no bodily form has nothing whatsoever to do with our discussion. A photon also has no bodily form, so does it not exist? There are different kinds of entities, and some have no body. Does that mean their existence is not a fact? You are really saying some very strange things.
If what you mean is that you have an experience of faith but you are not claiming that He exists, then you are indeed an atheist (I already mentioned that religious experiences exist among quite a few atheists). This is not an accusation, and I’m not trying to scare you. I’m simply describing reality.

Okay.
Suppose I accept your assertion that proof belongs to the epistemological plane and not the ontological one [although again, in my view the distinction between these two fields gets blurred in the postmodern age, and if I’m not mistaken Kant thinks so too, but I haven’t read all of his Critique of Pure Reason so I’m not sure…].

But how can one know absolutely that something exists if it cannot be proven?
How do you know with certainty that God exists and that this is not just your fiction or someone else’s?
If it’s a feeling or an emotion—fine for all of us, but if it’s knowledge—how does one get there?

I already wrote to you, and I’ll repeat it again. I do not know with certainty and cannot know with certainty anything, including belief in God. But the fact that there is no certainty does not mean there is no truth. I have no certainty even regarding the law of gravity or your own existence. So does that mean belief in those things is an experience or an emotion and not a factual claim?
The mistake of postmodernism is that it identifies absence of certainty with doubt (for them, only a proven claim is acceptable). The fact that I am not certain says nothing whatsoever about the truth. If in my view the truth is X, even if I’m not certain of it, then that is the truth for me until proven otherwise. And as long as that is the truth, then whoever says the opposite is mistaken. Even in Jewish law, a doubt exists only when the two possibilities are evenly balanced. Otherwise we follow the majority and there are no laws of doubt. A state of uncertainty is not a doubt. I devoted two books to this subject (Two Wagons and Truth and Unstable). The main discussion is in the introduction to my book Truth and Unstable.
Therefore, if I have whatever reasons (intellect, or something else—if in your view such a thing exists) for God’s existence, then I believe He exists. For me that is the truth. Of course I’m not certain of it, but it is the truth to the best of my judgment. From here one can either persuade me that I am mistaken or disagree with me. But one cannot say that I am not making a factual claim, and that someone who claims the opposite is just as right as I am. That is simply a logical confusion.

As an aside, I’ll just note that existing in some “age” is not an argument. So one cannot say that something is true because we are in this age or that age. To claim something, you need arguments on the merits. The fact that there are many confused people in our world, and even if they invented a name for their confusion (and crowned it with the title of postmodernity), proves nothing and constitutes no argument about anything. See a bit about this here (an evening in honor of the publication of Rabbi Shagar’s book—Tablets and Broken Tablets):

I listened [eagerly] to your remarks in that lecture from 5 years ago,
and it seems to me that you helped me sharpen the point—

The emphasis, in my eyes, in the postmodern age [and if I merit it—perhaps you will yet lead my tools to the bathhouse…]
is mainly on subjectivity, as opposed to modern objectivity.

I’ll explain my point through the example you mentioned regarding halakhic ruling—
I don’t know whether Rabbi Moshe Feinstein of blessed memory [for example], in the issue of permitting the consumption of non-Jewish milk, was in the mindset of being stringent or lenient [at the moment I still do not test kidneys and hearts…],
but at the same time, it may very well be that he understood that what he was writing here was a major leniency.
Therefore, the question what the truth or certainty is regarding the permissibility of non-Jewish milk is not really important.
The truth is not “up there” in heaven or beyond the sea, with a heavenly voice or with a transcendent God.
It is here on earth, with us, and therefore the Holy One, blessed be He, declares at the end of the passage of “the Oven of Akhnai” that “My children have defeated Me.”
That is the point.

Therefore, the issue you spoke about at the end of the lecture, about the exaggeration in thinking about reflection [and I agree that sometimes it really is exaggerated and wearisome],
is in my view exactly the point—
the question whether there is a God or there isn’t, and whether He is within us [the Hasidim] and within the world [Rabbi Kook, Spinoza, notwithstanding the differences between them], whether that is certainty or knowledge,
is not really important, and we will never be able to answer it—and not by accident.

The way I experience, feel, and know it—that is the essence, that is the point.

The objective non-Jewish milk will never change; the question is what Rabbi Moshe Feinstein’s position [for example] was toward it.

Have a good week and good night
[I seem to remember that you stay up till late hours, so I hope I didn’t bother you too much…]

Here we are entering several weighty issues, first and foremost the question of halakhic truth.
The conception of Jewish law as subjective leads to halakhic pluralism, and that is fundamentally mistaken. It is only the appearance of pluralism. Notice that Rabbi Moshe Feinstein himself speaks about the possibility that he is mistaken in his rulings, which according to your approach is impossible (because what he says is itself the Jewish law. There is no independent truth he is supposed to be aiming at).
See my article about this here:

האם ההלכה היא פלורליסטית?

And a bit more on the concepts here:

מחירה של הסובלנות

You are once again conflating the question of doubt or uncertainty with the categorical question (is this a fact or not). I already explained this in the previous emails. Everyone has experiences and feelings; that has nothing to do with faith. In the picture you are describing, discourse loses its meaning. Someone whose faith is an experience or an emotion is an atheist. Legitimate, but important to know.

I read both of your references [thought-provoking as they are],
and I still think that treating Jewish law as an existing “truth”
is a rather outdated outlook and not really relevant.

True, we are committed to our halakhic truth, and therefore, in the words of the Ritva,
we can place a stumbling block before the wise in certain cases [by the way, I did not find a source for the Magen Avraham’s novel claim in the Talmudic texts, neither in Eruvin nor in Pesachim…].

But at the same time, it is obvious that that “truth” also stems from our subjectivity.
If we take an example from the cheerful years of Yeshivat Yeruham—
is there a halakhic truth that forbids or obligates yeshiva students to enlist in the army?
As it happens, all the rabbis of the hesder yeshivot throughout the generations [more or less] will say there is an obligation,
and many rabbis of the Haredi public will say [more or less] that there is a prohibition.

So is there really “halakhic truth”?! I am astonished.
I think that perhaps [!] from a logical standpoint one can make such claims,
but they have no grounding in today’s way of thinking,
and therefore they seem to me an expression of lack of inner awareness and even self-denial, nothing more.

Or if we take the world of law as an example—
does Aharon Barak aim at legal truth?
Does he not insert his ideologies and opinions into his rulings?

Attached is something I wrote that may perhaps sharpen my point—
‘Keep Far from a False Matter’ / Reflections

‘Keep Far from a False Matter’

[This week’s Torah portion: Mishpatim]

In the postmodern world in which we live,

our relation to truth becomes

complex, and “my truth is not your truth.”

But despite this complexity, it is clear that there is

a difference between subjectivity and the selective

experience-hearing of those who experience-

hear, and between the concept of “falsehood.”

True, there is a “gray area,” but there is also an area that is not…

When the Lord God commands Adam, “But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, you shall not eat of it,” Eve

“hears” also that “of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of

the garden, God has said, you shall not eat of it,”

but she also adds that “you shall not touch it.”

The Sages [in the midrash] already noted this and expounded

the verse “Do not add to His words, lest

He reprove you and you be found a liar” [Proverbs], and they determined that

it is vital “not to make the fence greater than

the main principle, lest one fall and cut down the saplings.”

Precise and finely tuned listening to living reality,

to the word of God in the world, to the inner voice

within us, and also to the other person, is essential

for the proper existence of the world, and therefore—

from a false matter we must keep far away…

I’ll repeat again that labeling something “outdated” is not an argument.
There is another confusion in your remarks that concerns the concept of truth. Regarding the dispute over enlistment, it may be that there is one halakhic truth for Religious Zionists and another halakhic truth for Haredim. After all, Jewish law applies to a specific situation and set of circumstances. Beyond that, the fact that there is a dispute does not mean there is no truth. One side is right and the other is wrong. And indeed on this both sides agree (that one is right and the other is wrong); the dispute is over who is right and who is wrong.

And why not say that there is a dispute, and each side is right on a certain plane, whether that be—
in heaven or on earth, ideally or after the fact, in this world and in the world to come, and the like.
After all, the ruling is only on the practical plane, but on the plane of thought, heaven [and even truth] is the limit,
isn’t that so?

I wrote something like that in my article on whether Jewish law is pluralistic; see there. But the distinction is not between heaven and earth or ideal and after the fact, since right now the dispute is about the ideal Jewish law on earth. Each side thinks its Jewish law is the correct one now. See there, where I spoke about valid arguments in several directions but one correct ruling.

I’m skeptical that there really is such a thing as one correct ruling.

I’ll take a metaphor from the world of the psyche [and despite the difference between the two, I think it illustrates this well]—
when I guide parents regarding treatment of their child, I don’t start from the assumption that there is a “correct” treatment and an “incorrect” treatment.
There are certain directions, of course [less physical and/or verbal violence], and more movement with clear and precise boundaries, but also flexible ones.

Absolute truth belongs [perhaps] when you’re launching a missile to the moon [though in that, it seems to me, you’re a bit more knowledgeable than I am], but not in matters like these…
Have a pleasant day

We keep returning again and again to the same confusion. There definitely is truth in treatment: either it works or it doesn’t. You can say that different children require different treatments, but that has absolutely nothing to do with the question whether there is a correct and an incorrect treatment. Given a specific child, there is a treatment that works and one that does not. There may be several treatments that work; that only means they are all true. But a claim of that sort in no way undermines the judgment of truth and falsehood with respect to treatments. This confusion keeps recurring in what you write here.

The world, in my eyes, is not dichotomous and is not divided into “works” and “doesn’t work.” Maybe that is convenient for our conceptual thinking, but reality is much more a matter of continuums than of sharp lines…

Truth, for me, is something more like a space, a range, and not points and cuts…

Words, words…. When one hides behind vagueness, the possibility of discourse is avoided. It’s an escape used by someone who cannot defend his thesis. Even vagueness must be defined sharply (and usually it can be. I touched on that a bit in the lecture on Rabbi Shagar’s book).
Though it is true that in psychology almost nothing works, so it’s better to cover it with vague words that seem profound, where one supposedly can’t tell what works and what doesn’t, etc. 🙂

I completely disagree that in psychology it doesn’t work—not as a therapist and not as a patient.
A lot of things work; vagueness does not whitewash, just as with Lacan who spoke in vagueness.
Rabbi Kook says that mysteries can be clarified only through mysteries. Thus:

“Mysteries must be explained and

understood דווקא through mysteries,

and not through revealed things…

precisely the hidden is explained by the hidden.”

[Rabbi Kook]

At times a person tries to translate

deep ideas into simple language,

to explain, clarify, and simplify

the unexplainable—and this effort is in vain.

Borges [the Argentinian poet] even wrote,

in an extreme formulation, that “the original is unfaithful to the translation.”

Any attempt to confuse the languages

[as in the verse “let us there confound their language”],

to flatten those layers, shades,

and depths, mainly creates a sense of hubris

in that “stripper-down simplifier,” as though he

has understood the secret and the hidden, the closed and the concealed, the mysterious,

though Plato [the Greek philosopher] already said that—

“poets utter great and lofty things

that are not clear even to themselves.”

Sometimes that same “simplifier” even appropriates

those obscure sources in order to serve

his own views and attribute them

to that “source.”

It seems to me that explanations and clarifications

in a language of mystery—blurred, hidden, and obscure—

can empower these ancient sources,

cause them to be fruitful and multiply,

and perhaps even make them present and absorbed within

living culture in a deep and precise way,

as generators of movement and agents of change,

and not merely as hollow,

musty, and archaic slogans.

“Clarified”? Well, it’s hard to get out of this verbiage. When one is not committed to definitions and logic, it’s impossible to conduct a discussion.

I disagree. It is always possible to conduct a discussion, but logic is a certain working assumption. I seem to remember that you once quoted someone who asked the Rashba whether God is bound by the laws of logic [and therefore whether He can create a stone He is unable to lift], and I don’t remember what Rashba’s answer was, and in my eyes it also doesn’t matter all that much.
Logic is a certain mode of thought, and it seems disingenuous to me to think it is everything, and as attached below—

Psychoanalysis and Postmodernism / Reflections,
in honor of Freud’s Hebrew birthday

Some say that Sigmund [Shlomo]

Freud was among the heralds of the

postmodern age, because he emphasized

the rule of the human unconscious,

and compared “the relation of the id [= the unconscious]

to the ego [= the conscious] to the relation

of a rider to his horse.

The horse provides the motivating energy,

and the rider’s privilege is to determine

the goal and direct the movement of the

powerful beast.” Thus,

the absoluteness of the modern,

rational world was shaken.

In another formulation, he compared

Immanuel Kant [the German philosopher],

who “warned us not to ignore

the subjective conditioning of

our perception, and not to identify

our perception with the thing perceived, which

is unknowable,” with psychoanalysis,

which drums into us “that we should not put

the perception of consciousness in place of the unconscious psychic event… Just as the physical is not necessarily in reality as it appears to us—

so too with the psychic.”

On the other hand, he wrote that “in our day

the heads of [the intellectual nihilists]

have been made dizzy by the theory of relativity

of modern physics [= Einstein]… at times one gets the impression in you that this nihilism

[= rejection of traditional values]

is only a temporary stance…

and when science departs, perhaps mysticism

[= mysteriousness] will come in its place,

or again—the old religious worldview.

According to the anarchistic doctrine,

truth as such does not exist at all,

and secure knowledge of the external world is impossible.

What we propose and call scientific truth,

according to this, is nothing but the fruit of our own needs…

That is to say, even scientific truth

is an illusion. For in truth, we find only what we need,

and see only what we want to see.”

It is possible to move one’s lips at one another, and in postmodernism that is discourse. These people word at those people, these people mumble at those people…
When there is no logic, if you say X I can understand you to mean not-X, and vice versa. So you are saying nothing at all other than moving your lips.
Of course logic is not everything. But it is a necessary condition for meaning. Without it there is nothing. Once it is in place (that is, there is no contradiction), one can add dimensions beyond logic. Contradictions are nonsense.
Well, it seems to me we’ve exhausted this.
All the best,