I just now read the Davidson Institute article, and of course it does not say that there in any way.

And it shall come to pass at that time that I will search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the men who are settled on their lees, who say in their hearts: The Lord will neither do good nor do evil. And their wealth shall become plunder, and their houses a desolation; they shall build houses, but not dwell in them, and plant vineyards, but not drink their wine.

It would be a good idea for the Rabbi to keep away from Jerusalem in the near future
🙂

Scripture says, “who say in their hearts” — I say it out loud (for we hold that writing is like speech).
And similarly in Maimonides regarding “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” Concerning this prohibition he writes:
The 302nd commandment is that He warned us not to hate one another, as He said (Kedoshim 19), “You shall not hate your brother in your heart.” And the language of the Sifra is: I said only hatred that is in the heart. But if he showed him the hatred and informed him that he hates him, he does not violate this prohibition.
And so too in Laws of Character Traits 6:5-6.

The difficulty is explained: he wrote “Scripture wrote,” but really it is only “the Merciful One said,” and we have never heard that speech is like writing. Rather, the prophet is the agent of the Omnipresent, and therefore the prophet’s writing is like the Merciful One’s writing. If so, the mouth too is the agent of the heart, and then this is not a case of two hundred versus one hundred, but only the one hundred itself. But it seems that since the heart is within his body, there is no agency here, and the mouth is only the two hundred; and perhaps Maimonides holds that even in heavenly matters one does not derive punishments by logical inference. And with this the wording of the Sifra is precise, for it says, “I said only hatred that is in the heart,” and did not write, “I wrote only,” to teach you that here there is speech and not writing, because agency does not apply here through Moses; and therefore those who say it with their mouths are exempt, since that is the two hundred as against those who say it in their hearts, as explained.

The Sages did not forbid praying for a miracle. That’s ridiculous. After all, all the prophets prayed for miracles. They said that prayer about the past is a futile prayer (there admittedly was a difference between their conception and ours of what counts as “the past,” or regarding the state of the fetus), but that is only one type of miracle, not the ordinary kind people usually think of. An ordinary miracle is changing reality from this point on.

All you have left is to define prayer about the past. Simply put, it is prayer about a reality that has already been determined. But every reality has already been determined, and every prayer is for a miracle. Therefore I explained that the Sages probably understood there to be an undetermined reality, or a miracle within nature. But today it is commonly thought that there is no such thing. I have already elaborated on this several times.

I know very well what the Rabbi is talking about; I am only claiming that it is blatantly implausible. First of all, this is not talking about a reality that has been determined, but one that has already happened. That is not the same thing (like something in the king’s mind versus something that has gone out from the king’s mouth and been sealed with the king’s ring and cannot be revoked). Why should I care how the Sages imagined the world? This is a reality already from the period of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) — prayer and real miracles (miracles where there is no gap). The Rabbi wants to say that suddenly the Sages decided, despite all the biblical history, to forbid prayer for a miracle (a real one) out of nowhere? Suppose there were no Sages and only the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) — would the Rabbi say that it is permitted and even a commandment (if not an obligation) to pray? According to the Rabbi, did the Sages suddenly decide to forbid something that is apparently a commandment and at the very least a biblical reality, for no reason at all (because of their notion of gaps in nature)? Every time a prophet prayed in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), was he aiming at a gap in nature? Does it seem to the Rabbi that according to the Sages, when Moses our rabbi cried out to God and God split the sea, that was because there was a gap there? Otherwise he would not have prayed? What gap was there? And with Elijah too, when the fire came down from heaven and licked up the water? Forgive me, these are ridiculous things.

The simple explanation is that even according to accepted thought today one simply has to say that reality operates according to laws until the Holy One, blessed be He, takes the reins into His own hands (and that is when a person himself also decides to do so — and chooses the good. Meaning, there is no answer to prayer unless repentance accompanies it).

I have to say that sometimes the Rabbi gets stuck on some idea and then starts saying absurd things because of it. Like his answer to someone on the site who asked about the prohibition of marriage for homosexuals from “You shall not walk in their statutes,” and the example the Sages gave of women marrying women, etc., and the Rabbi answered him, “With that kind of expansive interpretation you won’t get far” (I was really embarrassed for the Rabbi over such an answer, and I should say that in that debate I actually wanted the Rabbi to win — I thought such a marriage was simply not defined at all — but in fact the questioner convinced me that there is such a prohibition).

Another example is that someone asked him whether transgenderism is an illness, and the Rabbi started twisting around that people get hurt and it’s forbidden to talk about it, instead of answering explicitly what his opinion is, whatever it may be (because here it is pretty clear to me personally that it is indeed an illness, and it seems to me that the Rabbi thinks so too and is afraid to say it or forces himself not to think so lest harm come to him — even from the leftist sitting on his left shoulder).

Forgive me, Rabbi, but this borders on (not quite there yet, but close to) intellectual dishonesty.

Correction to my comment: in the middle of the comment: “one simply has to say that reality operates according to laws until the Holy One, blessed be He, takes the reins into His own hands”

So why is it a futile prayer to pray, regarding the future, that from his wife’s womb on the day of birth a baby boy will emerge?

It is a futile prayer because it is already female. That has already happened (the determination of sex).

And there is a law of nature that sex persists and does not change. Exactly like the law that determines that the reality of now will persist and that its results will be, for example, a torrential rain on Tuesday morning in Nicaragua.

Immanuel, I am happy to receive rebuke from anyone, but rebuke has to be explained. In your words I found nothing beyond ridiculous declarations and distorted and partial quotations, in your own wording, of what I said. Did someone here mention intellectual dishonesty?…
They already answered you about miracles. What is wrong with praying that the Holy One, blessed be He, should perform sex-reassignment surgery? Even a flesh-and-blood doctor can do that today.
I am sorry that your hope that I had not won was disappointed, but I did not understand who was against whom and what exactly constituted victory.
The ridiculous summaries you make of my words are an insult to the intelligence. If you have something to comment on, bring the actual words and comment on them, and we will discuss them.
Generally speaking, I would say that if there is one thing I can hardly be accused of, it is lack of directness and political correctness.

And I will give them one heart and one way

There is nothing wrong with praying for a sex change (a real one. A doctor does not change sex, he only inflicts a mutilation) or that the sex of the fetus should change. That is, for a miracle. It just requires very special reasons for that (the Holy One, blessed be He, performs miracles for worthy purposes) and also very special merits for that. The Mishnah spoke about the usual case, where an ordinary person wants something that is indeed good (a male child, meaning better than the second option according to their period, and also in my opinion), and indeed without special merits and without special circumstances it is simply a futile prayer — not that it is forbidden, but futile, meaning for nothing; God will not listen to him — because, after all, the Holy One, blessed be He, has a grand plan for the world, and there need to be half women in it, so what is special about that particular person that for his benefit a miracle should be done and someone else should bear the burden instead (someone else will have a daughter in his place).

I refer to the questions I mentioned, and the Rabbi can look and understand what I was talking about (the “full background” to the quotations):

Homosexual marriages:

https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%94%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9B%D7%94-%D7%9C%D7%97%D7%AA%D7%95%D7%A0%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C-%D7%96%D7%95%D7%92-%D7%94%D7%95%D7%9E%D7%95%D7%A1%D7%A7%D7%A1%D7%95%D7%90%D7%9C%D7%99%D7%9D%E2%80%8E

The Rabbi wrote there: “With that kind of expansive interpretation you won’t get far” in relation to a commenter there who spoke about “like the practice of the land of Egypt…” What does “you won’t get far” mean?! Won’t get far enough to become prime minister? And

Transgenderism:

https://mikyab.net/%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%AA/%D7%9E%D7%94-%D7%94%D7%A2%D7%9E%D7%93%D7%94-%D7%A9%D7%9C%D7%9A-%D7%9B%D7%9C%D7%A4%D7%99-%D7%98%D7%A8%D7%A0%D7%A1%D7%92%D7%A0%D7%93%D7%A8%D7%99%D7%9D

Here it is already simply ridiculous (everyone with his own definitions, but what is the Rabbi’s definition? That is what he was asked). It is a short thread, and the reader can see the evasion for himself.

Of course I agree that the transgression is only that of those getting married and not of the whole audience, except that it participates in the sinful act (if people boycotted the wedding, there is a chance they would not get married). But that is not the answer itself; rather, it is the strange ignoring of the commenter above him (“you won’t get far”?! what is that?!). At most he should say that he thinks those participating in the ceremony do not violate the prohibition (again, despite the fact that this really is not clear. It could very well be that participation too is included in “their statutes” as part of the Egyptian way of life).

The Rabbi surely meant that in academia he would not get far. With that I definitely agree.

As for the trans issue, someone there in the thread already accused the Rabbi of political correctness…

To The Full Breadth of Your Land, Immanuel

There is no law of nature that the laws of nature are always correct. First of all, that is a meta-law of nature. And it too is not certain to be always true (turtles all the way down). In physics there is indeed an implication that equations describing various laws of nature are symmetric under time translation (which in plain language means they keep the same form always, that is, that the laws of nature they describe do not change over time). For example, conservation of energy is a consequence (and one also empirically proves it) of the fact that something in physics does not change over time. But of course that does not entail the reverse direction. And likewise, we have no way to prove that the law of conservation of energy itself is always true.

In any case, the laws of nature describe; they do not compel. We have a strong intuition regarding their reliability, but also an intuition that they do not compel anything.

Immanuel,
I will allow myself to ignore your pilpulim that do not hold water (or even pomegranates) regarding prayer for a miracle, and focus on what you brought from my words.
1. “You won’t get far” means that on that basis one could also forbid wearing pants or eating bread, since in Egypt they wore pants and ate bread. To anyone not bent on insisting, my words were entirely clear. If you think “get far” means in the geographical sense or the like, then apparently you need explanations for metaphors and somewhat more sophisticated uses of language. If so, I very much recommend repeating a few grades of school.
Simply speaking, it seems that the Sages understood the prohibition of “like the practice of the land of Egypt” as referring to things that are objectionable (morally or humanly), and “the practice of the land of Egypt” is just an expression for objectionable acts. The land of Egypt as such (what exactly they did there) is not indispensable, and that is not the reason for the prohibition. What is objectionable can change across times and places and periods.
You mentioned that people had already remarked to me in the short thread you referred to. I am glad. If you read that, then surely you also read that I blessed the questioner for returning from the floor where he was to our world. It seems that you too deserve a similar blessing (because of your accusation that I am politically correct — an accusation which, as stated, is very hard to level at me).
To explain what is wrong with my answer and why it fits political correctness, you need to define illness. If you define illness for me, I will be happy to offer you my position on whether trans is an illness or not. Since it is clear in advance that you will not succeed in doing so, I will continue without waiting for you. I have explained several times in the past that there is no definition of illness. Illness is something that a person or society does not want. If you define illness as something unusual, then being 2 meters tall is an illness (the percentage of people of that height is like the percentage of homosexuals in the population). In ordinary usage this is a value-laden definition that comes from what seems good or bad in people’s eyes. If you are opposed to homosexuality, you sometimes call it an illness. In my opinion that is the meaning of the term among people, but it is a superfluous meaning. Just say that in your eyes it is forbidden and flawed, and that’s it. In my view this is a meaningless definition and there is no point in using it, regardless of trans issues. The same goes for paranoid schizophrenia. And if someone is hurt by it, then there is certainly no point in using an incorrect and meaningless term just in order to hurt him.
If that is political correctness in your eyes, then we are probably speaking different languages. But by all means, I would be glad to receive your definition of illness, and an argument based on it for why transgenderism is, in your opinion, an illness (to make it easier for you, I suggest you compare it to someone who wants plastic surgery to fix his nose, or a tall person who wants surgery to reduce his height by ten centimeters. Are those too illnesses in your opinion?)

You introduced a distinction between the application of the status of a reality that “already is” and can no longer “change,” and something that has not yet been determined and therefore can change. And I said that in order to predict that the girl in the mother’s womb will continue to be a girl even in the next minute and that suddenly, to our surprise, a boy will not appear there, one has to assume the laws of physics (and also assume that they themselves persist over time), because they and only they are what determine this and cause it. After all, a world is entirely possible in which a creature identical to what we today classify as a “girl in the seventh month” turns the next day into a creature of the type that we today classify as a “boy in the seventh month and one day.”
General objections to the validity of the laws seem to me mere empty verbiage, and I see no point in entering that dark alley. Obviously everything can change in the future (and that same future can also nullify the entire Lagrangian, so I do not understand what you were trying to show with it), but their epistemological status is still far higher than whatever credibility anyone attributes to the Torah and the Sages and whatever else you like. If your line of argument converges on the claim that one can indeed pray for miracles because the laws of nature do not compel, then “all you have left is to define prayer about the past.” The first attempt at a definition came back empty-handed, and I am all ears to hear further attempts (though honestly I would be very surprised if they had any substance).

I wrote at exactly the same time that Rabbi Michi wrote, and a miracle occurred: it turns out he prepared exactly the breach I was trying to fence in.

To Rabbi Michi,

First of all, I love the way that when the Rabbi does not understand something, he uses phrases like “containers that don’t hold water” — it’s an effect of: don’t understand it, so it doesn’t exist, I don’t see it. But there are fools on this site on whom that makes an impression. If the Rabbi doesn’t want to deal with it, then let him just not address it. If it doesn’t hold water, then let him kindly show where the holes in the cup are. I am willing to elaborate and answer every question on the matter. How can one even talk about holding water when the Rabbi has decided that the Sages forbade something that all the prophets before them did? Does that seem plausible to him?

1. It was impossible to understand how far one could get (what luck that the Rabbi explained to me that he did not mean geographically. What would I have done without him. From now on I will carry a bathing suit to the bathhouse….). The Sages said this explicitly as an example of what the practice of the land of Egypt is — for example, a man marrying a man and a woman marrying a woman. That is not an overextended interpretation; it is written explicitly. You cannot get from here to wearing pants. Either make that claim against the Sages, or the Rabbi meant that all the participants sin through “their statutes,” but it did not seem that way because the Rabbi himself disputed that even those getting married sin in that sin (he was the first commenter who brought this into the discussion), so the Rabbi was really referring to the Sages’ interpretation in the matter (a man marries a man, etc.). But originally the Rabbi says here that “simply speaking it seems that the Sages understood…” so he is indeed referring to the commenter’s interpretation of the Sages. But the Sages wrote it here explicitly.

2. In the short thread I noticed, I also noticed the commenter’s words and your response to him, and once again you are evading. Your words about the definition of illness are familiar and known (and correct), and there was no need for all the long text you repeated here, but that too is another evasion. The questioner explicitly asked whether in your eyes this is considered not normal (never mind whether you call it an illness or not) or not. He asked for your personal opinion (your judgment. There is no need here for definitions. This is a question directed at your fundamental intuition), and you evade again and again. I am talking about the answer “it depends on culture…” and all sorts of nonsense (it’s nonsense because he asked what the culture is within which you personally live). After all, clearly this whole answer is a bluff. The trans people themselves see themselves in this state (the mismatch between soul and body) as a problematic state (not normal), and therefore they want those surgeries. But of course instead of correcting it they mutilate themselves (they cut off sexual organs). Does the Rabbi think that is not a mutilation? State your opinion explicitly and stop evading! It is simply pathetic! How far will the Rabbi go in saying that it depends on culture? Whether amputating sexual organs is considered a mutilation depends on culture? How can it be that in the same culture cutting off sexual organs in other cultures (for purposes of circumcision) is a barbaric thing (why is it forbidden for them?), but for trans people it is a necessary surgery? (This is a culture in which the only thing that determines is the feeling of the person operated on. That is, there is no objective reality of good and bad outside the person’s immediate emotional feeling. My intuition sees this as falsehood and absurdity, but you cannot show that through an explicit contradiction.) This whole discussion by the Rabbi about the definitional discussion is itself part of his flight from answering.

There is no need for definitions, because this is a matter of basic intuition whether it is normal or not, and the Rabbi was asked for his personal opinion. The accusation of political correctness is of course the readers’ clear intuition that the Rabbi really thinks it is not normal and is just afraid to say so (or even afraid to think so explicitly)….

For the sake of greater clarity, I will state my opinion on these matters so that the Rabbi will be clear what I am talking about:

Nose correction — normal

Reducing height — depends on the height (usually being tall is good). But today that is a joke, of course. More in the direction of mutilation (unless they invent such a surgery that shortens all the limbs in appropriate proportions).

Homosexuality —
1. Attraction to men — not entirely clear. This is an addition to the ordinary that has no clear biological need. Then it depends whether an extra limb is like a missing one or not. Apparently it is not harmful, but maybe it is like having six fingers. And it also depends on the next clause (whether it comes at the expense of attraction to women). My inclination is to say that this is indeed a problem because of the feminine character that sometimes accompanies this attraction (but not for everyone, it seems to me).

2. Lack of attraction to women — a kind of defect (obviously. A biological problem and in principle it prevents reproduction)

Transgenderism — a psychological problem.

Sex-change surgery for a trans person — mutilation (worsening the problem. They really do not change their sex, they only cut off their organs).

Let the Rabbi kindly write his personal opinion (intuition!!!!!) on each thing here as I have written.

The Full Breadth of Your Land,

So you know what a Lagrangian is…

In any case, I no longer have the energy to write. I am not a salesman, and I did not come to market the Torah and the Sages. I am occupied with understanding them. And Rabbi Michi’s understanding is blatantly implausible. My understanding is good and explanatory. If you do not believe in the Torah and in the Sages, that is already another matter.

In any case, I did not innovate anything. The distinction between changing a reality that has already occurred and a miracle with respect to a reality that has not yet occurred is obvious. As an extreme case, let us speak about prayer to change the past itself — that is, that history itself should change and not only from here onward. About that nobody speaks, and that is probably because then our reality would lose its meaning (think carefully about what I mean). The case of the Mishnah — changing a person’s sex (changing nature) — is an intermediate case between changing the past and changing something that is not nature (something connected to human free choice, say).

In any case, I do not have here an argument that one may pray for miracles. That is the only thing one can pray for (as the Rabbi already said). I am not trying to convince you that one can pray and that it helps. Maybe not. You are allowed to believe it does not. The Rabbi wants to claim that one can pray (or according to Jewish law should pray), but that it has no value, and that seems ridiculous to me.

Indeed, no one was talking about the extreme case of “changing the past.” Changing a person’s sex is entirely changing the future (changing the natural consequences of the present), not an intermediate case.
I also was not dealing with the question of what to pray for in my opinion, but with your brave attempt to present a consistent view that explains the difference between changing the sex of the fetus and other prayers (the alternative view is that the Sages knew there is a law that a male fetus remains male, but did not know there is a law governing rainfall).
I hereby remind you that you still have not presented such a view.

It is a simple intuition that there are cases (in the eyes of the Sages, and actually also in our own plain view) that are more deterministic than others. Changing the sex of a fetus (changing nature) is more deterministic than rainfall (simple systems versus complex ones; or more precisely, systems over which a person has no control versus systems in which a person can intervene — and then supposedly the Holy One, blessed be He, can also intervene more). And that is what I meant by saying it is an intermediate case.

By the way, there is no need to say there is a law that a fetus remains male. One can just call it persistent reality versus renewed reality, and that’s it.

But that is exactly the point: no. A “persistent” reality is the result of laws that determine (even if only statistically) where each particle will be at every time. Exactly exactly like the laws that determine the “renewal” of reality. Your simple intuition is not simple to me at all, and as far as I am concerned God can intervene in everything; that is not the issue. If God intervenes *like* a human being, and not by influencing human actions, then you arrive at the argument that God has chosen to intervene more when people do not notice the intervention. The problem is that in the time of the Sages, too, they did not know the sex of the child to be born, and one could not notice if God turned Dinah into Joseph.

So it is not simple for you. Suit yourself. For me it is. (It just feels to me like plain stubbornness on your part. You are simply imposing the modern worldview — which is not wrong, but also not absolute — on the ancient and intuitive one. That is your choice.) As I told you, the laws determine nothing. They are simply our description of nature. It is very reliable, but it does not compel anything. God can intervene in whatever way He sees fit. Either through influencing the human being or directly in nature. Whatever you like. Whether people see it or do not see it (there is a source, by the way, for this conception: blessing rests only on something hidden from the eye…). Whatever you like. In the period of the Sages there was a gap in knowledge, but that does not contradict the basic conception. Leah could have prayed that Joseph would turn into Dinah, and God could have answered her regardless of her knowledge of the situation (there was a man whose breasts grew and who nursed a child because he had no way to feed his son, and he prayed and such a miracle was done for him). It was just significantly easier by several degrees when there was no knowledge about the matter. I am occupied with understanding, not with persuasion.

Fine. Apparently what you call understanding, I have other names for.

It does not matter what names you have. One cannot give understanding some other label. Understanding is a matter of a feeling of understanding (peace of mind, and it is also connected to unity, simplicity, and harmony). That is what I strive for. It also has several levels (understanding can be deepened). And if you do not understand, that is fine; strive on and find a better understanding. Go in this your strength and save Israel. I only tell you that Rabbi Michi’s words give me no sense of understanding at all. They are excuses, not explanations. On the contrary, they distance me from understanding. Now ask yourself: do my words explain the Sages (within their world and from within their world — like the axiomatic approach to mathematics and physics, and Rabbi Chaim of Brisk’s approach to the Talmud)? That is the only thing that matters. Not whether they fit modern reality. That is already another subject. I cannot really explain to you without first understanding you. What troubles you and what you do not understand. And you too will not understand why something does give me understanding without understanding me, what troubles me and what does not.

By the way, after a conversation with my brother on the Sabbath, something else became clearer to me: the separation between miracle and nature really does have something a bit artificial about it (again, since the laws of nature do not compel anything; they are simply an explanation). A miracle is simply a phenomenon you have never encountered before. It does not break a single thing. The laws of nature are generalizations — however good they may be — but they do not guarantee or produce the reality they describe, and that is all. Otherwise it is simply scientific idolatry: what I do not understand does not exist. I refer you to Rabbi Michi’s story about the magician he saw in his youth (who caused someone to float in the air), and he wondered whether the magician had violated Newton’s physics (Newton’s second law), or had simply revealed an additional new natural force (the magician’s force — now one has to investigate this new physical force), and no law was broken. Or the children of Israel in the wilderness, for whom manna falls for forty years: for someone born in the fifth year, say, that is nature (he is used to it). Admittedly a special nature for the Jewish people — wherever they go, manna falls there. Indeed, a kind of somewhat wondrous nature. But in the ancient world, a miracle is really just something wondrous and out of the ordinary, not something impossible (because for them everything could be possible, and in truth for us too).