Q&A: On Thin Theology
On Thin Theology
Question
Hello Rabbi Michi,
Following your article about the need for a thin theology, in which area do you think there is a particular need for “narrowing the scope”? Or maybe in all areas?
If you could elaborate a bit…
Thank you
Answer
It isn’t a specific area. In my view, there is no Jewish theology at all. There are a few fundamental truths that are not “Jewish,” because true facts are true for everyone, regardless of whether we learned them from a Jewish source or not, and false facts are false for everyone, again regardless of their source.
The Holy One, blessed be He, created the world and gave the Torah, and perhaps also took us out of Egypt—that is roughly the full set of true facts, in my opinion. Everything else is speculation by various people; if you want, accept it, and if not, then don’t.
Discussion on Answer
I don’t know how much of the biblical description is metaphorical and what actually happened there. Beyond that, it is possible that what happened there was like the establishment of the State, which some attribute to the Holy One, blessed be He, but it can also be seen as a natural series of events. The plain meaning of the Torah suggests that there was explicit and direct divine intervention, but it’s hard to be certain. From the plain meaning of the Torah, the world was also created in six days 5,800 years ago.
There are many commandments that revolve around the Exodus from Egypt and its remembrance: sukkah, the prohibition of leavened food, redemption of the firstborn, etc. If this was an event in which the Holy One, blessed be He, was not involved, why would He command all these commandments?
As for creation in six days, only on the fourth day were the luminaries created. So apparently this is not a day measured by the earth’s rotation on its axis, but some unit of time of a certain length that is considered a day in the eyes of the Holy One, blessed be He. In the sense of, “For a thousand years in Your sight are but as yesterday.” Or as they say in the verse, “On that day the Lord shall be One and His name One” — “day” there is a stage in time whose length is not necessarily 24 hours. According to this, the age of the world is 6 “day” stages plus 5,800 years. In addition, the creation story is more metaphorical in character than the Exodus from Egypt, where the text sticks much more closely to earthly and prosaic details — like the census count, the food and drink situation of the children of Israel, and the various enemies they encountered on the way. Also, the creation story appears in the Torah itself in two completely different versions, whereas the story of the Exodus from Egypt appears in one version. When a story appears in two different versions, that probably means the details of each version are not essential to the message behind it.
If the Rabbi accepts the giving of the Torah at Sinai,
why does the Rabbi make the truth of the Exodus from Egypt by the Holy One, blessed be He, depend on the biblical description being metaphorical,
and not on the first commandment: “I am the Lord your God who brought you out of the land of Egypt”?
In light of the Rabbi’s very qualified insights, what, from your perspective, actually obligates us in practice?
Avi, this has nothing whatsoever to do with practical Jewish law.
Oren, I wrote that the plain meaning of the text implies that it should be taken literally. Still, as I wrote, there are many verses that do not bear their plain meaning, so one cannot be certain. And so too regarding “who brought you out of the land of Egypt.” There are a thousand ways to interpret that.
Woe is me!
Good grief, the rabbi of the holy believers. He’s gone heretical.
Go jump in a lake.
The fact that there is no clear historical evidence for the Exodus from Egypt is not evidence against it. It could be that the Holy One, blessed be He, concealed His involvement in the Exodus from Egypt (in fact, this also emerges from the words of the Sages in several places).
This is not similar to the story of creation and the Flood, where we are dealing with a global event that simply is not supported by genetic or geological evidence. The Exodus from Egypt is limited to a clearly defined region, where a miraculous event could occur without major impact on the various kinds of historical data. I am not saying that all the data are reasonable. The number of those leaving Egypt and entering the Land, for example, seems beyond the carrying capacity of the land during the settlement period (it is worth looking at the book “From Nomadism to Monarchy,” which is admittedly a bit dated, but the carrying-capacity calculations still seem reasonable), and perhaps it reflects a metaphorical or spiritual number. But that still does not contradict the possibility of an Exodus from Egypt.
Why the panic? Does the Torah really lose its validity without belief in the Exodus from Egypt?
A thin theology can agree to omit the story of the Exodus from Egypt and still remain binding in terms of the commandments.
Why only “perhaps” took us out of Egypt?