I’m not managing to sharpen the first question beyond this: in laws where there is a margin of deviation, can intervention not happen there?

Assuming that He hears us.

There are no such laws. See chapter 8–9 of Sciences of Freedom.

Ugggggh, what a bummer

But now seriously, how does the Rabbi deal with the wording of our prayers? With the Book of Psalms, whose simple meaning is that the Holy One, blessed be He, saves those who pray to Him and those who trust in Him?

Is there still any point in saying them? Is there any point to prayer when a person is about to undergo medical treatment, or a woman is trying to get pregnant, when these things don’t depend on him/her—but on the laws of nature?

I don’t understand. You said you know my view on the matter. I’ve explained it several times here.
It’s not about Psalms but about the Torah itself. See here:
https://mikyab.net/Writings/Articles/Searching for God in the World

As for the point of prayer, search here on the site. It’s already been discussed more than once.

I already looked through the article the Rabbi attached, and I went over it again.
In the article the discussion is about miracle and deviation from nature. Is a view that accepts the effect of prayer in one way or another necessarily a miracle and a deviation from nature? And necessarily a world of chaos?
(I apologize if this is an ignorant question. I didn’t study the core curriculum.)

And something else.
Could the counter-evidence that led you to write the model of gradual withdrawal perhaps serve as evidence that the Torah is not the word of God?

I saw some of the reasons the Rabbi gave for prayer, and they do make sense to me.
But the part about supplication can be dropped—or rather, it can’t. Prayer/request is the expression of your desire, and that is possible even if there is no answer at all. But supplication?

*about the point of prayer

It has nothing to do with the core curriculum. Many people get confused about this.
I told you to search the site, because I’ve already explained here several times that there is no divine involvement within nature. When God intervenes, that means that naturally X was supposed to happen and He makes Y happen.

This could serve as evidence of that, but since I don’t think so, for me the conclusion is gradual withdrawal. The conclusion about God and the Torah is based on a whole set of considerations, and overall it seems to me far more reasonable that there is a God and that something was given at Sinai. See the notebooks here on the site about that.

If supplication doesn’t seem reasonable to you—then don’t supplicate. Is there a commandment to supplicate?

I admit it’s hard to accept the Rabbi’s view, not because of logical considerations but because of an inner feeling.
Since the Rabbi is an authority for me (formally and essentially), I’ll keep pestering a bit more in order to understand and accept it in a way that settles fully on my heart. Hoping for understanding… I’m sure I’m not saying anything new to the Rabbi at all (: But in Maimonides’ time, the regularity of nature already existed just as it does today, so Maimonides didn’t know about it? Or is this only from the development of modern science? (And by the way, it seems simple that the commandment of prayer is in supplication.)
(a) It is a positive commandment to pray every day, as it is said: “And you shall serve the Lord your God” (Exodus 23:25). By tradition they learned that this service is prayer. And it is said: “And to serve Him with all your heart” (Deuteronomy 11:13); the sages said: What is service of the heart? This is prayer. The number of prayers is not from the Torah, nor is the text of this prayer from the Torah, nor does prayer have a fixed time from the Torah. (b) Therefore women and slaves are obligated in prayer, because it is a positive commandment not caused by time. Rather, the obligation of this commandment is this: that a person should pray and supplicate every day, and tell the praise of the Holy One, blessed be He, and afterward ask for his needs that he requires, with request and supplication,

One more thing. When I asked whether the counter-evidence to divine involvement could serve as evidence against the view that the Torah is the word of God—the question was broader. I think the Rabbi also wouldn’t disagree with me that the essence of Judaism and the Torah revolves around the relationship between human beings (the Jewish people) and God. We absorbed the cancellation of miracles and the cancellation of prophecy, and we live in hiddenness of the divine face. But if I remove from my life divine providence, or my knowledge that God watches over me in one way or another, and chance (nature) are the only factors influencing my life, then what reason could obligate me to follow the path of the Torah?
Because He said so in the Torah?? Bless the One who spoke… He doesn’t deal with me anyway, for good or for bad…
Because this is the path to a good and happy life?? I don’t think the Rabbi would sign off that this is specifically the path.
Gratitude?? Fine, I can feel gratitude every day without keeping the Torah.
Let me sharpen it in conclusion: if we matured and He has already left His involvement in this world, then most likely He is also less interested in whether we keep His word and His Torah or not.

I’m very sorry that I keep pressing, even though the Rabbi keeps sending me back again and again to material that already exists on the site.
But I’d really appreciate a specific response to the difficulties I’ve now raised.

Thank you very much!!!

The sages and many thinkers up to our day think one can speak of divine involvement within the laws of nature. They don’t understand that the laws of nature are rigid and without “holes.” The fact that the laws of nature already existed in Maimonides’ time does not mean that Maimonides knew and recognized them. Even today there are many, some certainly intelligent, who are mistaken about this. Anyone who speaks about divine involvement within nature is mistaken about this.
I don’t understand your entanglements about supplication. We talked about prayer.
I very much hope you do not see me, or anyone else, as a formal authority. Essential authority is not really authority.
I see no connection whatsoever between interaction with God and obligation in commandments. You ask how He can obligate? Because He created you, and that’s that. See the fifth notebook. Maybe what you meant to ask was why you should obey and not how He can obligate. That’s a completely different question. And the answer is: because that is the truth (we don’t gain anything from morality either, and yet it obligates). See also about this in the fifth notebook.

Regarding supplication—what I mean is that there is no such thing as supplicating to someone/God if there is a built-in law that there is no way for there to be an answer. So this isn’t a matter of whether it is reasonable to supplicate or not. That option simply doesn’t exist.
Regarding authority—obviously. I meant to express how great the Rabbi’s influence on me is, formally and essentially.
Obligation in commandments—whether we discuss His ability to obligate me or why I have a duty to obey Him, once He has withdrawn from managing the world and from His providence, it becomes a bit hard to suffice with the answer that He created me or that this is the truth. At least for me! I wish I could find the way to cope with the new insight and still not lose my commitment to the religion of Moses.
More power to the Rabbi for all the effort and the response.

With God’s help, eve of Sabbath, Shoftim 5779

The argument that God does not answer prayers stands in direct contradiction to the Torah of Moses, as it is written: “For what great nation is there that has God so near to it as the Lord our God is whenever we call upon Him?” (Deuteronomy 4:7). And so King David says: “The Lord is near to all who call upon Him, to all who call upon Him in truth” (Psalms 145).

With blessings,
S.Z. Levinger

Ron, regarding coping with the new insight, this is actually a fairly old insight that Maimonides already mentioned:
Laws of Repentance, chapter 10
10:1 A person should not say: I will do the commandments of the Torah and engage in its wisdom so that I will receive the blessings written in the Torah or merit the life of the world to come; and I will separate myself from the transgressions that the Torah warned against so that I will be saved from the curses written in the Torah or so that I will not be cut off from the life of the world to come.

10:2 It is not fitting to serve the Lord in this way. One who serves in this way serves out of fear; and this is not the level of the prophets, nor the level of the wise. One serves the Lord in this way only if he is one of the unlearned masses, women, and children, who are trained to serve out of fear until their knowledge increases and they serve out of love.

10:3 [2] One who serves out of love engages in 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; rather he does the truth because it is the truth, and in the end the good comes because of it.

10:4 This level is a very great level indeed, and not every sage merits it. It is the level of our forefather Abraham, whom the Holy One, blessed be He, called His beloved, because he served only out of love. And this is the level that the Holy One, blessed be He, commanded us through Moses our teacher, as it is said: “And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” (Deuteronomy 6:5). And when one loves the Lord with proper love, he immediately performs all the commandments out of love.

To “Doesn’t Fit with the Torah of Moses (to Ron)”: it can fit. See these verses:
“And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, your days are drawing near for you to die. Call Joshua and present yourselves in the Tent of Meeting, that I may command him. So Moses and Joshua went and presented themselves in the Tent of Meeting. And the Lord appeared in the Tent in a pillar of cloud, and the pillar of cloud stood over the entrance of the Tent. And the Lord said to Moses: Behold, you are about to lie down with your fathers, and this people will arise and go astray after the foreign gods of the land into whose midst they are coming, and they will forsake Me and break My covenant that I made with them. Then My anger will be kindled against them on that day, and I will forsake them and hide My face from them, and they will be devoured, and many evils and troubles will find them. And they will say on that day: Is it not because my God is not in my midst that these evils have found me? But I will surely hide My face on that day because of all the evil that they have done, for they turned to other gods.”

Except that in these verses it is presented as a punishment for bad behavior. My claim is that this is a deliberate process stemming from our maturation and that of the world.

I think the problem Ron is raising is real. In Judaism, the Torah sits on God’s neck like a millstone. (Actually, in my view the Torah is the one sitting on its neck, but let’s leave that aside for now.) As long as the Torah exists in an actual way in our world, God is supposed to be attached to it until its dying breath and/or His dying breath.

(I’m not bothering to justify these words of mine, first of all because I very much believe in the launching of arbitrary declarations… but also because I’ve done so many times in the past in this very venue.)

But what can you do? Michi’s straight intellect recoils, and rightly so, from this picture, and so he pulls the “gradual withdrawal” rabbit out of his hat: today, he says, God is not involved in the world (involvement that should primarily exist through the mediation of the Torah). But that is only today, because “we matured.”
In the past, when we were “children,” God was involved in our world (again, through the mediation of the Torah).
Michi is mistaken. According to the Torah’s own view, it never left us and never permitted us to “mature.” In its self-conception it is attached to God a priori from the moment it was created, and therefore there was not even a single moment—not even in our “childhood”—in which it permitted us to detach from the God bound up with it and thereby with us as well. The God of the Torah never left our neighborhood, and even if He had wanted to, the Torah would not have let Him.

In short: Michi’s interpretation (the doctrine of gradual withdrawal) tries to pave for itself a kind of golden path between reason and Torah, but in practice this attempt fails. In this way, the interpretation does an injustice not only to common sense but also to the Torah. In my opinion, that is the reason for the questioner’s discomfort with the answer.

Oren, I understand that Maimonides is talking about how one ought to serve God. But where did you find in Maimonides the insight that the world is run according to the laws of nature with no divine involvement at all?

Doron, in his own way, explained my discomfort with the Rabbi’s answer.
I’ll try to explain my discomfort myself…
I’m a thinking and rational person, and apparently also fairly brave in accepting difficult conclusions.
I accepted so many things and arguments that clearly contradicted the education and mindset I received at home and in educational institutions—and I managed. Because for me (I try), the intellect always wins.
But in this case I’m having a very hard time, because I can’t find a way to reconcile my belief in the word of God as it appears in the Torah with the theory of gradual withdrawal.
Since Rabbi Michi is known for his love of examples for purposes of discussion, I’ll illustrate my difficulty.

A father who begot and raised his child with great love, and took care of all his needs, later asked his son to obey an instruction book he had prepared for him, together with an explanation and a promise that only this way would the child grow properly and the father be able to watch over him. The son is faithful to his father’s request because of his trust in him and his recognition of his father’s ability.
After some years, the son discovers that the father fled to New Zealand and cut off all contact with his son… There is no longer any way to check whether the instruction book is valid even in the upheavals the son goes through… and the father is no longer interested in the son’s ways or needs. Does it seem reasonable that the son would continue to follow his father’s instructions?
And another substantial difficulty… how do we deal with all the wording in the prayers—Shacharit, Mincha, Arvit, Pesukei DeZimra?
The Torah reading… studying Talmud, etc… if there is no meaning to the words I am saying…
After all, according to your approach, Rabbi Michi, all this text is devoid of value and importance.

Ron,

I understand that you’re dissatisfied not only with Michi’s answers but also with the “help” that I supposedly offered you.
Still, allow me to shower you with more of this inferior material that I produce.

The example you gave (New Zealand etc.) is excellent in my view, but incomplete. Your parable (the child, the book, and the father) should, in my opinion, have been slightly different:

From the outset, the child learned of his father’s existence through the book, and consequently only through that text did he “learn” about the father’s care and devotion toward him. The father himself was never there—only a “holy” document supposed to represent him. In addition, the book explicitly says that the father will never leave his son.

Not a good parable. The father didn’t run away; he left his child all the tools to manage on his own. Once the child grew and learned to use them, the father stepped back, as happens with every one of us. The instructions the father left his child are for the sake of the child and not for the sake of the father, and therefore they do not depend on the father’s being here. They should be kept because they are correct, and because there is an obligation to the father for having created me and given me the tools.

Regarding the instructions the father left, you wrote that they are for the sake of the child. Isn’t it also for the sake of the father? According to what you wrote at the time about the secret of divine service, a higher need?

I wrote that it is both because they are correct and because they are for our sake. That covers both sides. Beyond that, there is no contradiction between the two sides: the action is for our sake, and that is what benefits Him. Otherwise He would not have created us at all, and then there would have been no need to command us.

Rabbi Michi, I didn’t understand why the parable isn’t good. Maybe I missed the tools (the laws of nature) and focused on the instructions. But alongside the tools, we received an instruction book that at the stage of gradual withdrawal is no longer relevant.
There are already tools for life. Is the instruction book still valid once we have matured?
In the example I gave—“Later, he asked his son to obey an instruction book he had prepared for him together with an explanation and a promise that only this way would the child grow properly and the father be able to watch over him”—how is it understood from this that the instructions are for the sake of God? Obviously they are for the sake of the child. But what does God want once we have matured and have tools?
You wrote: “and therefore they do not depend on the father’s being here. They should be kept because they are correct and because there is an obligation to the father for having created me and given me the tools.” Is that a sufficient reason?
I argued to you: “the father is no longer interested in the son’s ways and needs—does it seem reasonable that the son would continue to follow his father’s instructions?”

If He is not interested in us, as in the doctrine of withdrawal, what sort of obligation remains toward His instruction book? When we have tools and He no longer deals with us? His lack of involvement proves that there is no necessity to keep His instructions. Even He is no longer interested. And between us, there are many fine dictionaries that would testify to that.

I’ve already explained this, and I’ll repeat it one last time.
He is interested in us, but like every father He lets us manage on our own. He looks on from above and follows.
The instructions were not meant to give us tools. The tools were given to us regardless, and now we manage. The instructions are intended for various spiritual benefits (and also for Him, as was noted above here). Therefore this obligates regardless of our managing on our own.
That’s it. I’m done.

Indeed, we’ve exhausted it.
Thank you very much for everything!

There is a difficulty, a contradiction, between the philosophical logical move regarding prayer and the laws of nature. As a result of this, Michi claims something completely far-fetched: that the whole doctrine of reward and punishment and God’s answering prayer is something from the past. The move of “maturation” really does not emerge from the texts, and it is a bad excuse for a good difficulty. And as is known, a good difficulty is preferable.

Keren,
I absolutely prefer to remain with the difficulty rather than the answer of withdrawal, which to my understanding contradicts the Jewish religion from every direction.
Rabbi Michi’s view is not a reform in Judaism; it is more in the direction of abolishing religion.
And therefore I do not accept his answer…(I am not willing / not ready to remove from myself the religion of Moses).

With God’s help, 10 Elul 5779

There is no contradiction at all between the fact that there is regularity in nature and providence and prayer, for God is the One who established the laws of nature and He is the One who established the laws of reward and punishment. Since both systems of laws are His will, He will act in the optimal way so that there will be minimal conflict between the systems, and He will bring salvation through natural scenarios.

And as I demonstrated elsewhere: regarding one for whom a miracle was performed and breasts grew for him to nurse his son, the sages said, “How disgraceful is this man, for the orders of creation were changed for him.” Such open miracles God generally does not perform; rather, He helps through the existence of natural processes, such as preserving the mother’s health so that no wet nurse will be needed, or providing work for the father so that he can pay the wet nurse—things that are natural but not trivial, requiring human effort accompanied by heavenly assistance.

An act of divine aid in a natural way once happened to Rabbi Mordechai David Auerbach, when his family got stuck because of a car malfunction late at night in a deserted place. And then, because of a mistake, a neighbor arrived at the place, noticed them, and took them home. That is to say: heavenly assistance by natural means.

Such a “miracle” happens to every person according to Rabbi Mordechai David Auerbach whenever he chooses. After all, every act of a person depends on electrical signals of the brain transmitted to the nervous system. Every choice made in a person’s spirit is translated into a different electric current. And if a person changes through the power of thought and will the electrical currents transmitted from the brain—what problem is there that the will of the Creator of the world should affect the material world?

With blessings,
S.Z. Levinger

Ron, that is to say, you identify serving God specifically with serving not for its own sake. You are not ready for identifying service of God for its own sake. About you Maimonides wrote the beginning of chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance (as the service of women and children—those who “are not ready,” in your words). Good luck.

With God’s help, 10 Elul 5779

Ron—many greetings,

Before chapter 10 of the Laws of Repentance comes chapter 9, in which Maimonides explains that the true reward for the commandments is the spiritual reward, “the life of the world to come.” The recompense given in this world is “good working conditions” for the doer of good, making it easier for him to perfect his soul and merit the life of the world to come (and likewise, God forbid, the sinner encounters sufferings that hinder him from perfecting his soul).

In the Laws of Fasts, Maimonides mentions an additional role for suffering, a role of a “warning light” calling a person to examine his path and repair what needs repair. In his commentary to the Mishnah at the beginning of tractate Peah, Maimonides explains that there are things for which one deserves to receive “fruits in this world” besides spiritual perfection—namely things that benefit other people, for which it is fitting that a person receive “fruits in this world.”

Maimonides’ opinion, based both on Jewish sources and on natural justice, that God exercises individual providence over beings with knowledge and free choice in order to recompense their deeds for good and for bad—Maimonides explained in Guide of the Perplexed, part 3, chapter 17 and onward (for a comprehensive treatment, see Rabbi Chaim Weissman’s book Clarifications of Beliefs in Maimonides: Creation, Prophecy, and Providence in the Guide of the Perplexed, published by Har Bracha Institute).

With blessings,
S.Z. Levinger

One last note, God willing. Michi, you are known for your honesty, but here unfortunately you twisted yourself completely. Just as we recoil from apologetics and do not want to force science to fit the Torah, but rather stick to honesty, integrity, and the search for truth, so too on the other side we must not force the Torah to fit science but examine it freely. In the Torah, providence, reward and punishment, and prayer definitely exist. There are arguments about the measures and limits.
There are several ways to solve the difficulty between the determinism of the laws of nature and God’s freedom to answer prayer, all in the realm of theories (intervention hidden from the eye, God above time, a breach in determinism within the laws of nature, and more—most of which you discussed and tried to refute and you did not convince me. In any case, even if they are refuted, there is probably another mechanism, or there is a serious problem in the Torah—which cannot be solved by a twisted interpretation)). In science too we have contradictions and we try to resolve them with theories until we manage to find the straight path. The fact that in the meantime we live with contradictions does not cause us to abandon one experimental method or declare that one theory is wrong, or explain findings in an unconvincing way.

Rabbi Michi. I looked at Maimonides again, and at what I wrote throughout the discussion, and I did not find any connection between the “women and children” of Maimonides and what I said. I do not engage in Torah and commandments in order to gain something or be saved from calamity, but because it is true and in the end the good comes because of it. In the doctrine of gradual withdrawal the Holy One, blessed be He, is not present except in what you defined above as “looking on from above and following,” but I argued that in a world without actual divine involvement there is no possibility of reaching Maimonides’ criterion in those laws of what proper love is: “that he should love the Lord with a very great and exceeding love, a most intense love, until his soul is bound up in the love of the Lord and he is constantly obsessed with it, as though lovesick, whose mind is never free from love of that woman and who is always obsessed with her, whether sitting, rising, eating, or drinking. More than this should the love of the Lord be in the hearts of those who love Him, constantly obsessed with it, as He commanded, with all your heart and with all your soul…”

“…and this is what Solomon said by way of metaphor: ‘for I am sick with love’; and the whole Song of Songs is a parable for this matter.” Certainly not to keep following an old instruction book of His, since Maimonides concludes the Laws of Repentance this way: “It is a known and clear matter that the love of the Holy One, blessed be He, is not tied in a person’s heart until he is constantly obsessed with it as is fitting, and abandons everything in the world except it, as He commanded and said, with all your heart and with all your soul. One loves the Holy One, blessed be He, only through the knowledge by which one knows Him, and according to the knowledge will be the love—if little, little; if much, much. Therefore a person must devote himself to understanding and comprehending the wisdoms and insights that inform him of his Creator according to the capacity that man has to understand and attain, as we explained in the Laws of the Foundations of the Torah.” Nowadays the wisdoms and insights do not inform me of my Creator. They inform me about laws of nature. Any possible relation to the Holy One, blessed be He, and the Torah is within the framework of His “natural” presence.
I know no other relation. But if He is only watching, I’ll just wave to Him and bye-bye (sorry for the cynicism). It seems to me Maimonides would agree with me.

Or in short, as I replied above to Oren who brought Maimonides in Laws of Repentance chapter 10:

Oren, I understand that Maimonides is talking about how one ought to serve God. But where did you find in Maimonides the insight that the world is run according to the laws of nature with no divine involvement at all? End.

To measure me by Maimonides’ standards of “for its own sake” while he understood active involvement and I don’t have that?

Ron,
I assume by now you understand that I did not say that Maimonides’ position is that there is no divine involvement in the world (although elsewhere he writes that too. He explains that miracles were embedded in the world from its creation and opposes current divine intervention). But you did not merely argue that there is involvement; you added an assumption that without it there is no point and no possibility of serving Him (and one ought to abandon it), and afterward you qualified that at least it is impossible to love Him (translation: if it is impossible to love Him then there is no point in serving Him. Serving out of fear or from a sense of duty is beneath you).
That is, according to you, if He does not repay you for your actions, you see no point and no need to do them, and at least no possibility of loving Him. This second assumption of yours stands in direct contradiction to Maimonides’ service for its own sake here. He calls your lack of readiness (in your words) the service of women and children.
As for your remark about love as though it requires interaction—in my eyes that too is absurd. Why can’t one love Him for being good and perfect, and for having created us and created a world and laws that allow us to exist? It seems to me that not only is this possible; it is also closer to Maimonides’ view that you yourself quoted (he does not write there that the love is toward a factor with whom I interact, but toward the One who created nature and its laws—exactly what I wrote). It is strange that as support for your words you bring Maimonides, who writes what I am writing. Bottom line, you are willing to love Him only if He is now holding your hand. That is a love dependent on something. A bit of Platonic maturity seems lacking here to me (women and children, I already said?!…).

Keren,
To your methodological claims here I will devote, God willing, a column, since they do not concern only the question discussed here but methodology for dealing with difficulties and contradictions in general. Here I will only say that there are not many possibilities as you write. In my opinion there is not even one reasonable possibility. One can always make declarations that have no backing (like miracle within nature and the like). All these “possibilities” are very easy to refute, and I have done so here more than once. But wait for the column (240 according to the current plan), in which I’ll explain this in more detail.

In my view, the question of what Maimonides says, and even the question of the relation between the laws of nature and God’s involvement in the world, are secondary in our discussion.
It is more important to clarify what the Torah says about God’s involvement/non-involvement in the world, and even more important than that, what reason—separately from the question of the Torah’s relation to it—allows us to say about it.
Only after we formulate a position regarding these two separate issues is there room to cross-check—meaning, to examine whether the Torah’s central message accords with that of reason.
With the final conclusion one can finally go to the grocery store.

Rabbi Michi. Indeed, you did not say that according to Maimonides there is no involvement. Only I argued that without involvement I do not think Maimonides would describe the path of love and fear as he described it in the Laws of Repentance. I did not argue that without His repaying me for my deeds I see no point in loving Him and serving Him, but rather that without His active involvement in the world in some way there is no meaning to love and fear of Him. The reasonable possibility of pointing to involvement is answer through prayer, or divine providence—that is, even if there is suffering, even in the case of a complete righteous person and diligent servant who casts down his supplication day and night, it still comes from the will of God. In short… “man seeks meaning.” And in my view, “meaning” in the love of God and in serving Him can exist when there is some active involvement. In Maimonides’ words about “for its own sake” there is no deficiency in searching for meaning in His service and in His love; if anything, the opposite… and therefore I do not see a direct contradiction to Maimonides’ service for its own sake.

According to your view, He no longer deals with our world. About the world to come and reward and punishment you are doubtful whether it exists at all and in what way. What remains to us from Him is a magical, beautiful, and fascinating world. And we need to examine and refine what we are to do in return beyond gratitude. But the love or fear that leads to service of God as written in the Torah—from where? After all, He is not here!!! The Maimonides I quoted illustrates what sort of love is meant: “that he should love the Lord with a very great and exceeding love, a most intense love, until his soul is bound up in the love of the Lord and he is constantly obsessed with it, as though lovesick, whose mind is never free from love of that woman and who is always obsessed with her…” Maimonides’ description makes it clear that this is a real love and not mere empty talk without meaning; there is no such love. And if you tell me that this is simply what He said, I will answer that all this was said at a time when there was active involvement; then it was possible to arrive at love and fear, and certainly to service.

I repeat myself: to turn today’s God into a doll, who in the past was very active and today is silent, and to remain with the same love and fear, and the same level of obligation to His instructions—this, in my understanding, is forced and unreal. I am willing to love Him not only if He is holding my hand. In any case! But let Him actually exist in my world.

I apologize that my comments are split into several messages. Technical malfunction.

If we go back for a moment to the parable of the child whose father left for New Zealand:
Many years have already passed and the child has matured greatly. His friend from childhood was privileged that his father remained beside him and actively present in his life. Do they both love their father to the same degree?

I read again and again the quote you brought from Maimonides, and I really cannot understand your remark. There is not the slightest hint there that love depends on His involvement, nor on the world to come. More than that, I already pointed out to you that Maimonides’ position is indeed that there is no current involvement. So your words are puzzling textually and logically.
Again I say that this is not a doll but a father whose children have grown up, and I see no reason that anything in the love should change because the father lets the children manage on their own. And indeed, even if the child is in New Zealand, I see no reason that his love toward his father should diminish. Moreover, even if it does diminish, who said that the love must be at this or that level? Each person according to his situation. Moses our teacher, who meets the Holy One, blessed be He, directly (through a clear lens), is not like the other prophets, and the prophets are not like the rest of human beings; and therefore there is no impediment that today all of us should be in a more distant state and love as much as we can. Is there some necessity that the situation always be fit for maximal love? (Again, all this is according to your absurd view that love must depend on interaction.)
And in the bottom line I will just note that in fact our argument can take place, and that means you have no real indications of His current involvement beyond your belief that you have in it. But everything goes on for you just as it goes on for me, and all that differs is only the interpretation we give to it. So I do not understand why this interpretation is relevant to love toward Him and to His service. What happens to you happens thanks to Him, and the question whether this is because of the nature of creation from the outset or because of current involvement is a theoretical question with no practical expression, and should not change a thing in one’s relation toward Him.
Bottom line, your approach seems to me really absurd. I truly cannot understand even the side you are raising.
But that’s it. As far as I’m concerned, we’ve exhausted it, and let the chooser choose.

Rabbi Michi,
According to your approach, the father gave us a detailed instruction book, at first still influenced and changed things here and there, and afterward the world “matured” [yeah right] and he left us.
If so, then some of the instructions he gave us are no longer correct, because it is impossible not to fear in war because God is with us, since He has left us; the verse “For what great nation…” is no longer relevant, etc. And since God did not tell us in any way [in writing, orally; the tradition says something entirely different] that something of what He said would become meaningless [on the contrary, He defined it as a time of hiddenness of the divine face, not of a positive and permanent policy change], who will guarantee to us that His other instructions are still relevant? Maybe all the minutiae and details of the commandments were meant for an idolatrous world that needs a religion involved in its life all the time, but we, the mature world [yeah right], are supposed to live lives of conscience alone. Is all that we enslaved ourselves to keep the commandments all our lives only out of doubt as to which of the instructions we still have to continue keeping in our maturity??? After all, God doesn’t bother informing us of such minor changes.

And according to your approach, is there a promise that you will be saved in war? How does the Minchat Chinukh write that the way of war is that people die? (Regarding settling the Land of Israel, for which one must be killed rather than transgress, even though it is not among the three cardinal sins.) Maybe this commandment is to be interpreted as not fearing in war simply because it is forbidden to fear in war. The Holy One, blessed be He, watches over our deeds and will see to it that justice is done. In any case, the difficulty exists regardless of my words. No Jewish law changed. Even the promise in the Sabbatical year that the produce will increase is not fulfilled today either (and the explanations are well known: the Sabbatical year nowadays is rabbinic, etc.). The gates of excuses have not been locked.
He also did not tell us that prophecy would depart from us. We simply see it. He also did not tell us that open miracles would disappear, but we see it.

A good week, Rabbi Michi. I thought a lot about these things. Logically, I have no power to refute your words. All the more so since reality proves it, and you wrote about this: “And in the bottom line I will just note that in fact our argument can take place, and that means you have no real indications of His current involvement beyond your belief that you have in it. But everything goes on for you just as it goes on for me, and all that differs is only the interpretation we give to it.”
You don’t understand why the interpretation is relevant to love and service of God? But for me it is very relevant. My faith exists and can exist only if there is a connection between us and the Holy One, blessed be He, in current involvement.
And therefore my conclusion is that there is no necessity to pray and keep His commandments.
I will continue to keep the commandments and refrain from transgressions because that is how I was trained (and depending on my mood that day).
I do not find in your words a logical argument for keeping the Torah and commandments.
(Somewhat ironic that such a turn happened to me Davka in the month of Elul.)
Thank you very much! And happy new year.

No turn at all has happened in your service of God. From the very beginning you have done things out of habit; only until now you lived under the illusion of dialogue, and now the illusion in that has become clear to you. This is not a change in serving God, but sobering up from an illusion on the factual plane. And it is fitting for the month of Elul, since the seal of the Holy One, blessed be He, is truth, and He hates those who lie about Him.

May it be that this sobering up and clarification of the illusion will be revealed as a higher level, and that “The king has brought me into his chambers; we will rejoice and be glad in You” will be fulfilled in me.

To Ron,
If I were in your place, I would look for a greater necessity before reaching such a conclusion [not saying there isn’t one…]. After all, we have no knowledge that there are no changes in nature; we simply do not see them. And if we accept the words of religion that God changes the world according to the needs of the person praying, then necessarily there are changes—except that He hides them from people’s eyes so that the world will appear to be run naturally. [And even in the past, when the world was still “young,” most interventions were not against visible laws, though He did not refrain even from open violation.] So the far-reaching conclusion is truly far from necessary.
To the Rabbi,
Regarding your answer above: as long as there is providential intervention, it is possible to find meaning in the Torah’s command [as you explained, for example, that a person should be secure in his heart that God will bring only justice to light, and that he is in good hands]. But when God has left the land, no such reason is possible, and the command is nullified by its very nature.
But that is not my main point. I was making a further point: if we accept that the Torah presents a certain model, and our eyes see that the model does not exist in reality—as you brought from prophecy, which was promised to us and is not, and that He would be near us whenever we call upon Him and apparently is not, and that He would punish sinners with excision and our eyes see that not to be so, etc. [everything that touches on promise and providence and seeing His words occur in practice—as though nonexistent]—how do we know that the reason for these things is that He wants people to keep the Torah but is no longer willing to grant His part in the matter as He promised [which is very strange]? Perhaps it is because He got tired of playing with us by way of commandments and punishments, and went off to play another game [“a new covenant”…].
When the Jewish people went into exile, they thought that now there was no longer any reason for them to keep the laws of the Torah, but God informed them through His prophets that this was not so, etc. Today, when we have strong reasons to assume that God has indeed left us, perhaps there is no longer any point in our doing our part in the agreement; there is no longer a partner watching us and interested in it. Is all commandment observance, for you, only out of doubt—maybe this way and maybe that way?

To Rabbi Michi,
If you decided not to respond, I’ll respect your wish, but perhaps my last comment escaped your notice “by chance”? I’d be glad to hear your opinion on the matter.
[According to what you write on the site, it is possible that the commandments are nullified for several reasons: (a) maybe God is no longer interested and doesn’t bother informing us of that. (b) maybe the reasons or the reality into which the instructions were given are no longer relevant [see the parable of the short clothes in winter], and they lapse on their own. And since it is doubtful whether there is any reward for the commandments at all, and all the doing is only because of moral duty, whose nature is not clear to me—does morality also obligate one, in such a doubt, to wave the lulav?]

For some reason, I didn’t notice that the discussion here had continued. I no longer remember what it was about, and therefore I’ll address only your last message.
If He isn’t interested, why didn’t He bother informing us, just as He informed us that He is interested? Granted, regarding His involvement in the world we see it on our own. Regarding reasons that have lapsed, each commandment on its own. Sometimes I would be willing to accept such a proposal, and you already hinted at my article about “enlightened” idolatry.
Morality does not obligate one to wave a lulav. The obligation is because this is the truth, not because it is moral. There is no dependence between religious duties and moral duties. See column 15.

I would add that now we also have reason to doubt the principles of faith—not only because we don’t know who formulated them, but even if it were clear to us that all the words of the prophets are true, and God revealed Himself to them and promised that He would build us a Temple and bring the Messiah, etc., it is possible that since then the plans changed, and now He is busy with something else—who knows what.

I doubt them much earlier than that. Who says that these really are the principles and that we understood the words of the prophets correctly?! In general, slippery-slope threats do not frighten me. There is common sense, and for every matter and question there is a proper way to address them. There is no need to establish here a general doubt and a sweeping statement about all the questions of the world.

Hello Rabbi Michi.
I’m writing to you in the same place where I wrote to you that after I was convinced that you were right about providence, prayer, etc., I saw no need to serve or love God if He does not intervene in the world, and I added that maybe I would continue by force of inertia, etc.
After more than a year, I can say that not only did I not abandon Torah and commandments, but quite the opposite… keeping Torah and commandments took on a real form for me. Knowledge of God! The authority of Jewish law!
Not out of fear, not because of this or that emotion, not in order that He should grant me something, not because my grandmother told me.
Because I studied and researched and formed my position.
In short, only after you formulated a “thin” Judaism am I able to run with it on my shoulders everywhere and at all times.
Thank you, Rabbi Michi.

P.S. So yes, there are people you bring to repentance (:

I’m very glad to hear. May your strength be for Torah.

In my view you did not return in repentance but went out in question. You may study and keep commandments, but you do not believe. Precisely you, who felt inside yourself that there is Someone to whom you need to pray, that one and unique One your grandmother told you about. Instead of believing her, you were convinced by Michi that there is a Creator of the world, but He is not the God of Israel. And indeed, how could you pray to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Perhaps it would be better for you to cast off the disguise; then your longing for your people and your God will grow stronger, and you will truly return to Him.

You hurt my feelings by omitting the title “Rabbi” from Rabbi Michi.

Sorry, and I apologize if I hurt you or Rabbi Michi. I don’t know him. I came across him in an article in Makor Rishon (where among other things it was written in his name that homosexuality can be permitted; his figure from the newspaper intrigued me because I remembered there had been a big uproar when the book Two Carts and a Hot-Air Balloon came out, also in the yeshiva where I was studying then, and it seemed strange to me. I considered buying the books, and through Google I reached the site, asked him about it; at first he played innocent, then added that the reporter hadn’t understood and that there were corrections to the article). Since then I’ve read a lot on the site, mainly because it strengthens me in what not to be. I have never, in my view, received a fitting answer to my questions (and therefore I also won’t invest in buying the books). But it is a great merit to his credit that he maintains such a site that raises high-quality discussions connected to the world of Judaism. And especially because of the many commenters with different and interesting opinions, and he leaves most if not all views on the site. I don’t know a similar site with such interesting content, and for that many thanks to him. In any case, his own views are, in my eyes, very far from the Torah’s worldview—and I see in them denial of true faith. (In my opinion everything begins with what seems to me to be a dismissive attitude toward the views of many great figures, including halakhic decisors and medieval authorities, and also great Hasidic masters.) I thought he was a man of truth, and therefore I thought I could create a dialogue with him. Apparently I’m not wise enough, but I merit only condescending and dismissive responses. It’s hard for me to see myself convincing him of anything—maybe I’ll help someone, maybe you (because you seemed like a person with an understanding heart). I give him great credit and certainly do not want to hurt him, but understand why I find it difficult to call him rabbi. And probably I simply shouldn’t comment here anymore.