Q&A: What Was the Hebrew Bible Written For?
What Was the Hebrew Bible Written For?
Question
Michi, hello,
You said this evening in class that we don’t learn anything from the Hebrew Bible that we didn’t already know beforehand. If so, what was it written for?
Thanks
Answer
That’s a good question. I don’t know. As a matter of fact, I see that whatever people learn from the Hebrew Bible is always banal lessons that everyone already knows. If there is wisdom in those studies, it lies only in how those lessons are tied to the text (not in the lessons themselves). It’s possible that in the past people learned values from the Hebrew Bible that were not self-evident. But today people understand what morality is and what is permitted and forbidden to do. They don’t need the Hebrew Bible for that (and perhaps that itself is thanks to the lessons the Hebrew Bible instilled in human culture in the past, but today, in my view, it has no real contribution). And if people disagree about a moral question, then amazingly each of them will find his own position in the Hebrew Bible. The Hebrew Bible will not decide any dispute. Feminists find feminism in it, socialists find socialism in it, capitalists find capitalism in it, and so on. In my view, the Hebrew Bible is a Rorschach blot.
Discussion on Answer
Even if that is what He wanted, why do I need to deal with the Hebrew Bible? After all, I already know the result beforehand, so I’ll do what I think—and that’s what God wants.
I don’t know about the results—whether they can really be known in advance.
It seems to me that denial of the Torah can come from these approaches:
1) All the wisdom in the Torah has already been explained.
2) The Torah we have today is not the Torah that Moses gave, but rather a corruption and editing of it up until the Hebrew Bible was canonized.
3) From the outset, the Torah has no meaning except as an initial milestone for new developments that will come later.
How pathetic it is to say such things about the most amazing book in the world.
Every ethics book repeats things that are already known but forgotten from the heart [see the introduction to Duties of the Heart by Rabbenu Bachya].
I think that when you know a book was written by a prophet, its words penetrate the heart much more deeply.
It may be that more intellectual, less emotional people will connect with that less, but to say such things is an insult to [emotional] intelligence.
If you understood that my intention was to insult emotional intelligence, then apparently I expressed myself very clearly. I’m glad I was understood. 🙂
Then get rid of psychologists.
Deny emotion, which in most people is stronger than intellect. Maybe in you too.
Erase the Talmudic statement, “A person does not sin unless a spirit of folly enters him.” After all, everything comes from the intellect.
Ignore the facts of depression and other things that exist—and not because of the intellect! They come from emotion!!
Strengthening the intellect is important, but books that speak to emotion, written by prophets, and hundreds of millions of people enjoy reading them—then along comes a clever person and says these can be thrown in the trash. That shows he didn’t think for even half a second before making that statement, or that he has some old conclusion that came without thought, or that he’s an idiot.
And no, it’s not funny.
Sorry for the wording—I appreciate the Rabbi very much and I’ve been helped a lot by him. But this point is infuriating.
There is sweetness in the intellect. There is also sweetness in emotion. You can say, “I didn’t connect to it,” but not dismiss it.
A quote from the Rabbi:
2. Even if one studies higher realms, that can still do something for us. But that does not mean we are studying ourselves. When we study the infinity of the Holy One, blessed be He, or that He created the world, we are not dealing with ourselves in any way. It has one implication or another for us and for our world. [About the mystical tradition]
Words of Kabbalah affect the soul.
Words of ethics—don’t!!
Suppose you’re right, and it really is the kind of thing where everyone sees in it whatever he wants.
Wouldn’t it follow from that that this is what God wanted?