Question

A friend of mine sent me the following questions about your remarks on various topics. I’m copying them exactly as written, with your permission:
“I just read several articles by Rabbi Michael Abraham. A few comments:
1. Since he does not address the question itself, ‘What is reality?,’ he assumes that every faith-claim is a claim about facts, regarding which there is no intrinsic authority (as opposed to claims in Jewish law, regarding which there is—for those, the Holy One Blessed be He ‘changes His mind’ about what the commandment is in accordance with the view of the sages [at a given time, in a dispute]).
On the other hand, if you hold that reality depends on perception, then the concept of a ‘factual claim’ takes on a new meaning—for if perception has a spiritual component, that would mean that the Holy One Blessed be He changes His mind only with respect to what your intellect perceives, that is, something entirely abstract. To claim, for example, that the Holy One Blessed be He does not intervene in reality is not so obvious when we are talking only about your perception. You can say that this does not happen with things you see with your own eyes and can tell are not happening, but what about listening to prayers? The coming of the Messiah? You do not see that it is not happening (if you take into account excuses like ‘not every prayer is fulfilled exactly the way you think,’ etc.).
2. There is a certain loop in his attitude toward earlier generations. As is well known, Amoraim do not dispute Tannaim, Geonim do not dispute Amoraim, later authorities (Acharonim) do not dispute medieval authorities (Rishonim) (the medieval authorities do in fact dispute the Geonim, but that is probably because they saw themselves as belonging to the same generation, and only we divide them artificially). On that basis, if you follow tradition, you arrive at the conclusion that one should follow the earlier generations—and if you do not accept that, then not. So far so good, but it seems clear that the Amoraim viewed the Tannaim as essentially greater than themselves—‘If the earlier ones were like angels, we are like men; and if the earlier ones were like men, we are like donkeys—not like the donkey of Rabbi Hanina ben Dosa or of Rabbi Pinchas ben Yair, but like ordinary donkeys’; and in addition, ‘Rabbi Yohanan said: The hearts of the earlier ones were like the entrance to the Ulam, and those of the later ones like the entrance to the Heikhal, while we are like the eye of a fine needle’ (a more significant quote—there is a spiritual change, which is relevant if you hold that Torah is also influenced by the student’s level of closeness to God).
Rabbi Michael Abraham’s acceptance of the Talmud supposedly stems only from the fact that it has intrinsic authority, and not because there is an essential change between the generations—but from these sources it appears that there is an essential change between the generations.
From here there are several possibilities:
A. Not to accept this Talmudic passage because it does not seem reasonable—which would mean there are passages of Talmud that we do not accept simply because they do not seem reasonable to us, and not because of some absolute logical argument against them (for this is a claim that cannot be disproven; for every difficulty you raise, and every contradiction that seems to you to be something the Amora did not consider, you could say, ‘He considered it and knew an answer that we do not know, because he is essentially superior’). Perhaps that is indeed the situation—is it really so?
B. To say that this is true only with respect to Amoraim and Tannaim, but not beyond that—a claim that would need a good explanation.
C. To bring counterexamples. I do not know many such examples.
The point is that the question, ‘Do we accept the medieval authorities even when they seem mistaken to us?’ is a halakhic question that does not depend on facts, and therefore it should be discussed through sources. The question, ‘Are the generations declining?’ is a question that appears to be about reality, but it could be interpreted as a question about purely spiritual level—and that is something the Holy One Blessed be He can determine even in accordance with what the sages said [in reality He does not intervene here, only in the spiritual realm].
3. He says there are many determinations that the sages made based on the reality they thought was correct, and they were mistaken (mainly in the Talmud, regarding gentiles, the woman’s body, and so on), but he does not address the fact that there are mistaken determinations for which there is no way to say they are merely errors, such as in Niddah 31a: that a male is born face downward and a female face upward, corresponding to the way intercourse takes place (how could they have been mistaken about that? They delivered babies at home!); or that gentiles are filthy (even though in the days of some of the Amoraim they even had gentile friends, such as Ablat who is mentioned in the Talmud); or ‘better to dwell as two than to dwell in widowhood’—when even in their own time it was obvious that some women would not agree to marry someone who would leave them chained to the marriage [at least the more respected women, or those with many suitors], so you would have to say this is not something that depends on ordinary contractual intent, because otherwise it would vary from woman to woman depending on her situation. There are things where, fine, they consulted experts who were mistaken, and we can do the same today and be more correct—but there are things they had to observe directly on a regular basis, so how could they simply be wrong about them?” That is the end.
Thank you very much.
 
P.S. I know requests like this drive you crazy, but if you have some nice jazz piece you could recommend to me, I’d be very happy.