Q&A: Divine Inspiration
Divine Inspiration
Question
I saw in your column about the amoraim that you don’t buy their divine inspiration story. Do you not believe in the concept of divine inspiration, or is it only that the amoraim didn’t have it, and why?
Thanks in advance.
Answer
In my view, the concept of divine inspiration usually describes good intuition, and that exists today as well. In its mystical sense, I do not believe in it. There is prophecy when prophets were examined and shown to meet the required tests, and there are ordinary people, all of whom have intuition to one degree or another.
Discussion on Answer
Boaz,
presumably according to Mishneh Halakhot, anyone who says that divine inspiration is intuition would all the more so be considered a heretic…
I suggest being very careful with “divine inspiration”; it can lead respectable people to prey on married women. Already two thousand years ago, divine inspiration impregnated a married woman, and stories like that still haven’t stopped. Not long ago, a religious court determined that Rabbi Shmuel Tal had an improper relationship with a married woman, stemming from: “divine inspiration that guided the rabbi in many matters of leadership, both public and private.”
https://www.srugim.co.il/354356-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%9A-%D7%A8%D7%91-%D7%A9%D7%A0%D7%99%D7%94%D7%9C-%D7%A7%D7%A9%D7%A8-%D7%A4%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%9C-%D7%A2%D7%9D-%D7%90%D7%A9%D7%AA-%D7%90%D7%99%D7%A9-%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%95%D7%9C-%D7%9C%D7%A9
In the Rabbi’s words I found an answer to something I saw a long time ago in the book Mishneh Halakhot, where he wrote that anyone who does not believe that the book Mishnah Berurah was written with divine inspiration is a heretic. According to what was said above, this works out well, because the author of the Mishnah Berurah certainly had very good intuition.