So that I won’t have to rewrite stage C, I ask you to continue the discussion from the page “Continuation of Clear Faith II.”

I didn’t understand why you said (in your last response on the page “A Clarification Question”) that I disappear for long stretches and don’t respond to your comments, etc.
Now I noticed that there were other inquiries to you (from different times) whose writers are also called “Anonymous.”
My only inquiries to you were on the question pages “Clear Faith” and “The Attitude toward Jewish law.”
My inquiries to you will be, without making a vow, from around 3:00 PM until around 7:00 PM (at least until further notice).
I greatly appreciate your effort to satisfy those who turn to you and to respond to everyone despite your other occupations.

I said that because that is the situation. But no use wasting time—let’s continue. It also doesn’t have to be continuous, but without gaps in which I’ll forget what we’re talking about.

I’m putting stage C here, and we’ll continue.
You wrote there:

When one studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) (even if one does not understand all the contents precisely), one notices that besides factual historical messages, there are also factual metaphysical messages and another type of message.
The factual metaphysical messages include, among other things: the existence of spiritual beings (angels), the possibility of a mystical connection with the Creator (prophecy), the Creator’s intervention in the world (providence and modes of governance), a certain order in the spiritual world (for example: Ezekiel’s vision of the chariot), etc.
The additional type of message is: predictions of the future (prophecies such as: the war of Gog and Magog, world peace among the nations, etc.).
Premise A: The Creator wants to convey messages to created beings.
Premise B: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is the Creator’s book of messages.
Premise C: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains factual metaphysical messages.
Premise D: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains messages of future events (prophecies).

Conclusion: The Creator wants us to know the metaphysical facts and the predictions of the future according to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).

I didn’t understand why this is a different or additional stage. You’re almost repeating the same things, except for elaborating on metaphysical and future facts. Please try to be focused.
Agreed. Go on.

So what have we got so far?
The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains normative messages (laws and behavioral guidance) and factual messages (historical, metaphysical, and prophecies), and the Creator wants us to know the facts and uphold the norms according to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
If a person wants to fulfill the Creator’s will, then he needs to study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and thereby know the facts and uphold the norms.
However, when a person studies the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), he discovers that it is not always clear, and that there are different ways to understand the text. How much more so regarding understanding the details of the laws, where the warnings and punishments are so severe, and at times it is even impossible to understand at all what the Creator wants to convey to us through it (even in general), etc.
Question: How does the Creator expect us to fulfill His will and warn us with severe punishments about it when the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) alone is not clear enough?
Answer: Maybe, in addition to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the Creator also transmitted an oral tradition for understanding its contents.
Premise A: The Creator wants to convey messages to created beings.
Premise B: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is the Creator’s book of messages.
Premise C: The Creator requires the fulfillment of the messages and threatens wrongdoers severely.
Premise D: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is not clear enough for understanding the messages.
Premise E: The Creator wants the messages to be understood uniformly, so that all the Jewish people will be obligated by the same legal system and the same principles of faith / belief, and He does not want a state of anarchy in which “every man does what is right in his own eyes.”
Premise F: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) itself directs us to clarify questions with the sages of each and every generation and obligates us to obey them (the commandment of “do not deviate”).

Conclusion: The Creator transmitted an Oral Torah that explains the messages of the Written Torah (the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)).

I’ll start by jumping straight to the bottom line: if your goal is to show that an Oral Torah was transmitted, then the whole route was unnecessary. I agree. The question is what its content is and what it includes.
Moreover, if your intention is to argue in favor of the Oral Torah as an explanation of the laws in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), we have no substantive disagreement (except perhaps about the scope of the Oral Torah as opposed to the interpretive component added to it. I won’t get into that). The main discussion is about everything beyond the laws.

In the argument itself there are several fundamental holes:
1. It is not true that every factual or value-related detail in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is severe and carries punishments. Not at all. There are severe transgressions and important commandments, and there are those for which there are no punishments at all. And all this is within Jewish law. But with regard to values and facts, there is no measure of their importance, and of course no punishment is relevant to them.
Still, none of this is important to the argument, since I agree that the Holy One, blessed be He, probably wanted to convey all of these to us (even if they are not all that important, and certainly there is no punishment for them).
2. Not only are there different ways to understand the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), but it is clear that different thinkers read into it what they themselves think and do not really learn anything from it. In other words, no single tradition accompanying the text orally emerges.
3. I don’t know where the assumption comes from that He wants uniform understanding and uniform observance. On the contrary, if that is what He wants, then His pedagogical failure is much more severe. He failed colossally.
So in fact the opposite possibility arises here, against your assumptions: perhaps the Holy One, blessed be He, does not want to convey messages to us at all, meaning a set of bottom lines, but rather a framework within which we shape and choose our path. Perhaps He wants us to read the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and within it shape our way and our thoughts, whatever they may be, and not necessarily to hit His original intention exactly.
I’ll repeat that my basic assumption is like yours (that there are supposed to be bottom-line messages), but if you’re building an argument, you have to take this possibility into account as well. Especially in light of the assumptions and the facts (the failure to create any tradition around the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)).
4. Your premise F is simply incorrect. The Holy One, blessed be He, does not direct us to the sages of each generation, but only to the Sanhedrin, and only in halakhic / of Jewish law matters. The verse that is the source of their authority is “do not deviate,” and it deals only with the Sanhedrin and only with Jewish law (“between blood and blood, between plea and plea, and between lesion and lesion, matters of dispute within your gates”). I will note, however, that the Sefer Ha-Chinukh takes an exceptional view, and he holds that there is indeed authority for the sages of every generation—but of course it isn’t clear who determines who they are. In any case, this is a puzzling and exceptional view. By the way, here itself you can see ambiguity and lack of conclusiveness on the most fundamental issue in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), contrary to your assumption discussed in my point 3.

To be honest, I’d be happy to see what exactly you’re trying to prove here, because I’m concerned that you’re going to prove something I already agree with anyway, and the rest you won’t manage to prove. If so, then of course this whole discussion is pointless. It may clarify the process, but of course if you want to continue like this without revealing your cards in advance—go ahead.

Regarding 4, it depends on what stage we’re at. If we’re at the stage of reading the Torah to know God’s will, then the Torah says to go to “the judge who will be in those days,” meaning in every generation. If we’ve already been convinced that we don’t care what is written in the Torah but rather what the Sages say, then they really did already change that (apparently by mistake).

Of course, I am assuming here the tradition of the Sages. Someone who intends to live according to the Written Torah is a completely different discussion, and I was not under the impression that that is what was being discussed.
I’ll just add that if, according to your view, one is supposed to turn to the sages of each generation, then I suggest you do so. They themselves tell you that the verse was said only about the Sanhedrin. So either way, my conclusion follows.

By the way, I actually don’t think the Sages made a mistake, or missed the meaning of this verse. But that’s a different discussion and not the place for it here (I seem to recall we discussed it here once already. Maybe around IGOD).

I don’t think they made a mistake in understanding the verse. I think they wanted to define its boundaries, and then, without intending to, it came out that it doesn’t always apply, and that’s what I call a mistake. They wanted it not to be the case that just anyone would be “the judge who will be in those days,” so they imposed regulation on it. Later the regulation said this would only be in the Land of Israel, and that was done in order to centralize authority against Babylonia. In my estimation, if they had known that a time would come when there would no longer be ordained sages and there would no longer be an authority one must obey, they wouldn’t have done it—and that’s what I meant by ‘by mistake.’

Maybe yes and maybe no. But if we turn to the sages of each generation, the sages of this generation also tell us that the authority was given only to the Sanhedrin.

Rabbi, hello. I was not impressed that there are fundamental holes in the argument.
1) If you look carefully at what I wrote, you’ll notice that I wrote about “understanding the details of the laws, where the warnings and punishments concerning them are so severe.” That is, there are laws for which the warnings and punishments are so severe—not all the laws—and I didn’t mention warnings and punishments at all regarding the factual messages.
Therefore, in the question (“How does the Creator expect…”) I relied on the above understanding, which belongs to the background explanation of the premises, and in premise C itself I wrote “fulfillment of the messages,” meaning those messages that depend on fulfillment—namely those specific laws about which the Torah warns us so severely.
2) I didn’t mention thinkers or specific opinions of thinkers, or what the oral tradition on the text is.
3) Your objections to premise E (the premise of uniformity of the legal messages) are based on an examination of Jewish history (an examination which is mistaken in my opinion, and I assume that stems from a dispute between us regarding faith / belief in understanding the Creator’s providence over reality, and we’ll get there, without making a vow), but in any case we still haven’t reached that stage yet. We’re trying to examine things only from the standpoint of someone trying to understand the biblical text itself.
This premise (the premise of uniformity of the legal messages) is a premise based on reasoning and not necessarily from the biblical text itself.
My reasoning is that an intelligent person, reading a legal text of an intelligent lawgiver intended for an entire people, assumes that it is more reasonable that the lawgiver wants an orderly legal system, by which the public will know clearly what is required of them, what they will be accused for, and how they will be punished, and therefore there is a point in warning them, etc.
It is less reasonable for an intelligent person to think (to put it mildly) that the intelligent lawgiver prefers a state of anarchy in which every individual may interpret the law however he feels like.
We have already noted that the biblical text is not clear enough for people to understand those legal messages, so the text itself is open to all sorts of different interpretations. In that case, what point does the intelligent lawgiver have in warning, and what justification would he have in punishing the “wrongdoers” in such a situation (assuming he is moral and judges justly), since the “wrongdoers” can give their own interpretation of the legal messages and justify their actions by relying on the biblical text itself?
4) You are getting ahead of yourself (Yishai understood what I meant).
We are still at the stage of examining only the biblical text itself (where the plain meaning of the verses is the sages of each and every generation without qualification {I mentioned the commandment of “do not deviate” so that you would understand which verses I meant when I argued that the text itself directs us to the sages who will clarify our questions for us}). The Sages’ interpretation is not relevant to stage D (the goal of this stage is to establish logically the conclusion that: it is more reasonable to think that the Creator transmitted an Oral Torah—whatever it may be—whose role is to explain the unclear messages of the Written Torah, which itself also directs us to the sages to clarify questions, and less reasonable {to put it mildly} that He requires observance of the laws and threatens severe punishments for some of them without those laws being explained at all {see my response in the section about the premise of uniformity of the messages}.

Without making a vow, I’ll continue tomorrow with the next stage.

Clearly the Holy One, blessed be He, expects us to keep His laws. Clearly that requires us to understand them, whether or not there is a punishment attached to them (the issue of punishment is not relevant at all in my opinion).
It is not true that the interpretation has to be uniform, and in reality the fact is that it is not uniform. Therefore, if the Holy One, blessed be He, expects uniformity, then He failed. Your assumption is not at all necessary as a matter of reasoning, and it also fails the practical test.

In short, the suspicion I wrote in my previous message is growing much stronger. If your intention is to prove to me that there was an Oral Torah explaining the laws, the whole argument seems unnecessary to me. I agree (again, within limits of content and scope. No uniformity was ever to be expected there).
So now I’m already asking you to give me the bottom line: what exactly are you trying to prove to me? Let’s see whether it’s even worth continuing.

To my disappointment, you continue to criticize me for things I did not write, but rather for things you assume I meant (in light of your responses, I assume that you assume I mean absolute uniformity of the Creator’s oral messages on all the written laws in all their interpretations, details, and fine points as they appear in the literature of the Sages—and that is not my intention), and you ignore what I did write (examining history is not relevant at this stage, because we are trying to get into the mind of a person who received the Written Torah when it was given. In addition, I did not write that this reasoning is necessary or certain, but only sufficiently reasonable and plausible so that it can join the weighing of the premises by the person who must decide whether it is more reasonable that there were some oral messages {I didn’t address at all their quantity or quality, etc.} or more reasonable that the text alone was given to the Jewish people).
Thank God I came across a submission on your site called: “Article: Oral Torah – Philosophical, Historical, and Biblical Foundations for Its Authority,” where the author wrote the same premises and explained them as I myself understand them, and not according to what you apparently assumed I understand. Read it there, and if you are still not convinced that this premise (the premise of some degree of uniformity, even slight, and not necessarily in every last detail) is sufficiently reasonable and plausible to join the weighing of the premises by the wavering person (I repeat: this premise is not necessary and not certain, {as premises generally are}, but sufficiently reasonable and plausible), then let us agree that we disagree. In any case, even without this premise, the logical basis for believing in some sort of oral messages (whatever they may be in quantity and quality) from the Creator is still plausible.

Since you already want to get to the purpose of the discussion, I will skip the stage of the logical basis for the superiority of the oral tradition of the Sages over its competitors (assuming you have accepted the tradition of the Sages), and continue to the point of substantive disagreement between us.

We are wasting our time. Whether I understood you or not, I asked you to say now what point you want to prove, and then we’ll see whether there is a disagreement and whether it is worth continuing. So again you didn’t say, and again you just repeated yourself and ground already-ground flour. We’re grinding water and getting nowhere.
Therefore, please say in your next message (preferably in one sentence) what you want to prove and where you think I disagree with you. Until then I have nothing to continue with, and I’m stopping this exhausting discussion here.

Premise A: The Creator wants to convey messages to created beings.
Premise B: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is the book of the Creator’s true messages.
Premise C: The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) contains factual metaphysical messages and predictions of the future.
Premise D: Metaphysical facts and predictions of the future cannot truly be attained by reasoning, but only through a mystical connection with the spiritual world.
Premise E: The prophets had a mystical connection with the spiritual world and understood the factual metaphysical messages and predictions of the future according to what was revealed to them by the Creator (as opposed to ordinary readers of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)).
Premise F: The prophets transmitted their knowledge through tradition.
Premise G: In the sources of the Sages there are factual metaphysical messages and predictions of the future.
Premise H: The Sages (at least some of them) had a mystical connection with the spiritual world (as documented in the sources of the Sages).
Premise I: The integrity of the Sages is reliable in our eyes, and they did not deceive us and invent baseless speculations about metaphysics and future events.

Conclusion: The Sages did not deceive us and invent metaphysics and predictions of the future from their own hearts; rather, the factual metaphysical messages and predictions of the future that appear in the sources of the Sages are the fruit of the tradition of the prophets according to what the Creator revealed to them and/or the fruit of their own mystical connection with the spiritual world according to what was revealed to them. Therefore, the metaphysical messages and predictions of the future in the sources of the Sages are true according to what they received in tradition from the prophets and according to what was revealed to them through their connection with the spiritual world.

If you believe in these premises and in this conclusion, why do you deny individual providence, reward and punishment in the spiritual world, God’s knowledge of the future, etc., as they appear in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and in the literature of the Sages? Who exactly revealed to you that there is no individual providence of God over reality, no reward and punishment in the spiritual world, that God does not know what will happen in the future, etc.? On what do you rely when you tell other people that there is no need to believe the metaphysical messages that appear in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and in the literature of the Sages?

When a person believes in the metaphysical tradition of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and of the literature of the Sages, then his faith / belief is based logically on the trust he places in the prophets, who had a mystical connection with the spiritual world, and in the Sages (at least some of them), who had a mystical connection with the spiritual world, and therefore he relies on testimony that is reliable in his eyes regarding heavenly messages from the spiritual world that were conveyed to them by the Creator.
But someone who adopts your positions—what does he have to rely on? You don’t claim to say that you have a mystical connection with the spiritual world and that metaphysical messages, etc., were revealed to you, and the intellect cannot attain the truth in these areas, so it is not relevant at all. So I ask you and everyone who reads this: where does reason incline more—to believe the metaphysical tradition of those whom you do believe received metaphysical messages from the Creator, or to believe the baseless speculations of someone who never received metaphysical messages from the Creator?

I am aware that the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the words of the Sages are not always clear and are open to different interpretations (which of the messages are literal? which are allegory? what is the allegory’s meaning? what do we do with apparent contradictions in the metaphysical sources? etc.), but the starting point toward the sources is what is important and what distinguishes the one who believes in the tradition of the prophets and the Sages from the one who denies the tradition of the prophets and the Sages, namely: when a person encounters strange or unclear sources, etc., does he believe that the Sages faithfully transmitted the tradition of the prophets and/or discovered the metaphysical truths themselves and wrote them in their writings, and he tries to understand them according to his ability and effort, and if he did not understand, he places the “blame” on his limited understanding—whether due to a lack of analytical talent or because not all messages have an answer that the human intellect can attain, and about this the Sages said: “Do not seek what is too wondrous for you, and do not investigate what is hidden from you; reflect only on what you have been permitted, you have no business with hidden things” (Babylonian Talmud, tractate Hagigah 13a)—or does he accuse the Sages of deceit, of inventing nonsensical fabrications of metaphysics and prophecy? And why this accusation? Because the text does not fit with his own logic, and therefore he denies some of the messages of the tradition of the prophets and the Sages, and by that he deviates from fulfilling the Creator’s will that he know and believe these messages, and therefore He revealed Himself to His devoted ones, the prophets and the Sages; and one should be very concerned about what is written in the book of Proverbs: “There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the ways of death.”

You do not have to understand everything, and if some position is beyond your understanding, then it is no shame to tell those who turn to you (about any body of knowledge in general, and metaphysics in particular, since as long as we have not experienced spiritual attainments, we have no possibility of understanding these things except according to what was transmitted to us in tradition by those who did experience spiritual attainments): I do not know what these words mean, or how these things work, or how these things will happen, etc.—and not, because of the embarrassment of not understanding the sources, choose to deny the tradition of the prophets and the Sages.

The purpose of this response is to try to show you the logic of believing in the tradition of the prophets and the Sages, and that we have no other reliable sources to rely on in the areas of metaphysics and prophecy, and that we have nothing at all to lose if we believe in it: either we are right, and then we fulfilled the Creator’s will for us; or we are wrong, but then no one has grounds to accuse us of anything, because we searched and did not find more reliable sources than this. But if, God forbid, we abandon the tradition of the prophets and the Sages, then if we were right, what did we gain? Applause from the deniers that we “exposed” the bluff. But if we were wrong, then we failed to fulfill God’s will for us without having a more justified and logical reason to leave our accepted tradition.

Now the ball is in your court, and you need to decide which of the options seems more reliable and reasonable to you.

I hope and wish that you merit to make the right choice, and that you always align yourself with the Creator’s will for you in everything you turn to.

Premise D is incorrect. One can arrive at metaphysical conclusions through reasoning: the existence of God and the immortality of the soul, for example, are the result of rational consideration (one can of course disagree, but there is no doubt that people can arrive at these conclusions through reason alone).
Premise F is not precise. Who said they transmitted all their knowledge? What they are commanded to prophesy to others—if they suppress it, there is a law regarding one who suppresses his prophecy. But everything else can remain with them. Moses our rabbi, for example, had attainments that he did not pass on, otherwise he would not have been the greatest of the prophets. Beyond that, even if they passed on all their information, did they know all the information? Was there no information not in the hands of the prophets? Is there not something the Holy One, blessed be He, knows that they did not know? So what if they pass their knowledge on?
Premise H really doesn’t seem right to me. Even Raavad, who writes that the holy spirit appeared in his study hall, probably meant that metaphorically (see Rabbi Margaliot’s introduction to Responsa from Heaven).
Premise I is indeed true in my view: the Sages are trustworthy to me in that they did not deceive. But at the same time, they certainly drew their own conclusions about many things, and in those they could err like any human being (such as incorrect scientific facts). They also learn things from the gentiles and from their surroundings and from the science of their time and from the philosophies and spiritual conceptions prevalent in their era. They can also infer conclusions from the verses of the prophets, but that is their interpretation, not information transmitted to them by tradition from the prophets. Even information that reaches them through tradition passes through interpretation (so, for example, even if information was transmitted to them that there is individual providence, they may interpret that as being always true, but perhaps it changed over the generations?). In your opinion, can all this not be mistaken? Are the beliefs Maimonides describes also a tradition from the prophets? Didn’t he also rely on reasoning and interpretation? With him it is explicit that he does. So why shouldn’t the Sages do that? Sages in every generation do it, so why shouldn’t the Sages? It is also documented in the Talmud in many places (conclusions based on reasoning, disputes, etc.). I have to say that all this seems really bizarre to me.

So there goes your whole argument, fallen into the pit. And here is my alternative:

Premise A: The Sages have no sources of information beyond what I have and what tradition gives us. On the contrary, in science and, I estimate, also in philosophy, our generation probably knows more and is more skilled than they were.
Premise B: What they infer on their own can be mistaken.
Premise C: They can infer metaphysical and spiritual conclusions on their own.
Conclusion: There can certainly be mistaken things in their words, including metaphysical conclusions.
Additional conclusion: In order to formulate a position, we must examine what they received through tradition and what they did not. I believe in tradition, but not necessarily in the rest. In addition, one must examine the arguments for and against their words. These two examinations should form the basis of my conclusion about their words.

The things I doubt or deny are matters for which there is pretty good evidence that they are not true. Such as knowledge of the future (Newcomb’s paradox), such as individual providence (the scientific worldview and the laws of physics), etc.
True, scientists unfortunately have no ties to mystical worlds (nor do I), but to the best of my judgment they too teach us a few things, and I recommend listening to them very carefully (even if not accepting automatically).
Beyond that, I also proposed the thesis that reality has changed since the time described by Scripture, the prophets, and even the Sages.

As for Pascal’s wager that you suggest at the end of your words, allow me not to respond. You can see my opinion about it in the book God Plays Dice.

Thanks for the good wishes. I wish all of us to make choices that are correct and reasonable.

Since the focus of your argument is the assumption that statements about metaphysics are necessarily the product of tradition and not of reasoning, I’ll refer you to Maimonides’ Laws of the Foundations of the Torah. Four chapters there are devoted to metaphysical determinations. The first two are products of reasoning and interpretation that Maimonides offers for the verses of the prophets, and not at all of tradition. The next two chapters are devoted to a collection of bizarre Aristotelian statements about separate intellects, spheres that move without interruption, souls of stars, substances made of wind, earth, and fire, and the nature of all these, and more.
Did Aristotle have such a tradition? Where did he invent this from? And Maimonides? Did he rely on a tradition that bypassed Aristotle and reached him directly, and just happened to say exactly Aristotle’s doctrine? Tell me, do you really accept the claim that stars have souls and consciousness and know their Creator? Because as far as I know, when Neil Armstrong returned from the moon, he didn’t say that when he first stepped on it, the moon rolled with laughter and said to him, “Stop, you’re tickling me.” And what about the transparent spheres moving endlessly in the heavens? (Which are all circular, of course, as we received from tradition, and not ellipses, heaven forbid, like those scientific pot-bellied reasoners claim.)
By the way, even the foundations of faith / belief that he lists there in chapters 1–2 are the result of philosophical reasoning and his interpretation of the words of the prophets. Even so, in his view these are principles of faith / belief, and it doesn’t bother him that they emerged from his own reasoning and his own interpretations of the verses. He does not present this there as tradition at all, and it is quite clear that it indeed is not. On the contrary, in chapter 2, halakhah 12 there, he concludes that because of his reasoning, one must say that everything said in the verses of the prophets is allegory and figurative language—that is, he takes his reasoning and forces the prophets to fit it. Sound familiar?
By the way, this is exactly what he does with matters like the evil eye and demons in the Sages: although all of these are of course tradition straight from Sinai, he throws them to the winds and simply omits them from his book, including in the practical laws. And well known are the words of the Vilna Gaon in his glosses to Shulchan Arukh, Yoreh De’ah, who wrote that accursed philosophy led him astray. Not to mention Maimonides’ interpretation of the various prohibitions of idolatry, all of which for him are really just one prohibition: not to be foolish. And again, all the sorceries described in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and in the Sages are simply sleight of hand. Let us remember that other medieval authorities (Rishonim) explain otherwise. So what did tradition say about all these metaphysical matters? Did they derive their interpretations from their own reasoning? No, that can’t be… There was a tradition saying that these prohibitions are prohibitions against being foolish and that there is nothing real in them, while at the same time there is something real in them. There was a tradition saying that the spheres have souls and that in the heavens all kinds of separate intellects are spinning around—just for some reason it reached Maimonides (who just happened to line up with Aristotle’s doctrine), and for some reason many others (less connected to Aristotle) never heard of it.
And what about Maimonides’ insights into the nature of the axis of time? Metaphysical statements like that surely reached him by tradition too, right?

And what about his statements regarding providence and miracles. In several places he claims there is no intervention by the Holy One, blessed be He, in nature, and everything is embedded in creation from the moment of creation (there are sources for this in the Sages). Is that also tradition? So why didn’t the other medieval authorities (Rishonim) hear about it? And if they didn’t hear (it slipped their notice), then they should accept it from Maimonides, who did hear it. By the way, that is exactly my assumption in light of the scientific worldview. That is, the same assumption and from the same source, and I do something a bit different with it than Maimonides does. But in your opinion I’m the denier who doesn’t believe in tradition and is arrogantly convinced he understands everything, whereas Maimonides is the great father of tradition.

All right, that’s enough for me, and I won’t go on listing things like a peddler…

Premise D: I’ll explain what I meant: I meant specific metaphysical facts, not general ones. Example: one can arrive by reasoning at the conclusion that there is a Creator of the world and that He is good, but that is general and does not let us know His specific will for us (are there laws we are obligated in? and if so, what are they?) and other questions connected to what lies behind the scenes of visible reality (the purpose of creation, the roles of angels, the ways of His providence and governance of the world, the places of reward and punishment, the meaning of His various names, etc.). Therefore, spiritual revelation is needed, and that is the condition for moving from deism (which is possible through metaphysical reasoning) to theism (only through spiritual revelation).

Premise F: I did not say they transmitted all their information, only that they transmitted metaphysical information—whatever it may have been—orally in tradition. It is certainly reasonable and plausible (not necessary and not certain, as premises generally are) that the Creator, who wants us to know the metaphysical messages and therefore revealed Himself to them, transmitted them to the prophets, and they in turn transmitted, in addition to what was said in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), explanations of their words to the sages of their generation (the prophets primarily transmitted their prophecies orally to their contemporaries and did not only give them writings {the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is the book of the prophecies needed for future generations}), and naturally the people asked them questions, etc., about their prophecies and about the word of God, and they explained God’s messages to them so that they would understand exactly what God required of them and would not be uncertain about the messages), and so on until these were put into writing by the Sages. I also believe that God knows things the prophets did not know, but only what the Creator revealed to them (“No eye has seen, O God, besides You…” ).

Premise H: The premise depends on the level of trust you have in the sources of the Sages. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) teaches us that there is a possibility of a real mystical connection with the spiritual world, and not just a metaphor (I assume that is why you believe in the Torah of Israel {at least in part}), and in many places in the literature of the Sages there are stories of mystical revelations experienced by the Sages in connection with the spiritual world (such as the revelation of Elijah and a heavenly voice), and the things are written in a way that I do not need to assume that this is a metaphor, but rather a literal mystical connection with the spiritual world, and I have no reason to suspect the Sages of having lied to us; rather, they told us their true experiences. Regarding Raavad, believe what you want (holy spirit literally or metaphorically); the faith of Israel does not depend on what you think he meant, but on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the tradition of the Sages, and that one sentence of his is not a measure for me in assessing the reliability of the holy spirit in the literal sense among the Sages.

Premise I: To my disappointment, you do not distinguish between the two types of Torah tradition (the laws and the factual information in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and correspondingly, the halakhot and the aggadot in the literature of the Sages).
1) The legal type, which is logical only {after the spiritual revelation to Moses our rabbi}: the laws of the Torah and external bodies of knowledge that are required for Torah law study {mathematics, botany, anatomy, etc.}, in which the sages must decide only by the intellect, through reasoning and rationales, and are forbidden to pay attention to spiritual revelations (“the oven of Akhnai,” etc.). Therefore, in this realm there is no need to believe that the Sages could not err, because “a judge has only what his eyes see,” and they are commanded to decide solely according to the reasoning, rationales, and scientific, technological, and cultural reality of their time.
2) The factual type, which also contains specific metaphysical facts, and there (in metaphysics) there is no place for baseless reasoning. Since I believe that the prophets, who possessed the holy spirit, transmitted metaphysical information in tradition to the sages over the generations until the Sages, who put what they received into writing, and in addition I believe, based on the testimony of the Sages, that they themselves possessed the holy spirit in the literal sense, I hold that the metaphysical facts in their writings are the fruit of the holy spirit of the prophets or of their own, and they are true and not mistaken, because “this was from the Lord.” Therefore, I have no need to think that they merely put forward metaphysical speculations whose source was the influence of foreign nations. Regarding Maimonides (and all the sages after the period of the Sages), as you said, anyone who did not testify about himself, or whose contemporaries did not testify about him, that he had a mystical connection with the spiritual world—I have no reason to believe that everything he says is true, because if he did not receive the information from a higher source, then it is reasoning. And regarding reasoning, I have no need to believe that there were no mistakes there, etc., and therefore I do not rely on them in the metaphysical realm. In addition, even if you believe that only the prophets received the metaphysical truth through the holy spirit and everyone else merely philosophized, even then logic says that only on the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) should you rely in metaphysics, because they (the prophets) are the only faithful source for the word of God in truth. In that case, all you have is study of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) alone, and if you study the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) carefully according to its plain meaning, you will see that its positions are the opposite of your metaphysical positions (God’s providence over reality, God’s knowledge of the future, etc.).

Regarding science: I am surprised at you that you believe that what you cannot understand with your own logic—whether philosophically or scientifically—applies also to the Creator. The Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) (even if you believe only in it) and the Sages warn us so many times not to project from our human abilities onto God’s abilities. Look carefully at the plain meaning of the verses of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) (for example: Isaiah, Psalms, etc.) and tell me whether it seems to you that the message of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is that God is limited by the laws of nature, or that He rules over nature and guides it (“He who told the oil to burn can tell the vinegar to burn”). I have great appreciation for the scientific method (we’ve advanced quite nicely with it, haven’t we?), but one must understand that its logic is subject to the laws of nature and it has no business with hidden things, and certainly not with God’s abilities—and that is what we are talking about. It seems so bizarre to me that someone who claims to be rational limits the Creator to laws that He Himself created ex nihilo.

Regarding your claim that perhaps the metaphysical facts changed since the time of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), etc., my response is: how do you know? Ah—you only think they changed. Well, I have reliable testimony from prophets who spoke in God’s name, and since then there have been no people who came in God’s name and told us that the facts changed. So why should I accept your thesis, which is based on nothing, and reject my belief in the words of the prophets (I also believe the Sages and also believe certain kabbalists whom I became convinced are genuine, and I can logically justify my trust in those kabbalists)?

Regarding choosing what to believe: call it whatever you want, in the name of whomever you want. The fact is: the Torah of Israel is a mystical Torah (I define it as rational mysticism), therefore, as long as you have not experienced spiritual attainments, your faith / belief depends on a combination of critical reason and the degree of trust you place in the tradition of those who transmit it, and you need to decide in favor of the side toward which reason inclines more (both in rational criticism and in whom you place your trust).

In summary:
We have three gates, and only by combining them can we understand the Creator’s will for us: the gate of the Written Torah, the gate of the Oral Torah, and the gate of our own intellect. I recommend that you not give up even one of them, whether in norms or in facts.
I hope that an intelligent person who studies our correspondence carefully, your objections and my answers, etc., will notice where the logic tends more—in my words or in yours (in my words).
Would that you choose the correct opinions and good deeds and bring pleasure to the blessed Creator.
May the name of the Lord be blessed from now and forever.
Sabbath peace.

Indeed, we’ve exhausted it. Everything is repeating itself.

Rabbi, hello,

I’m sorry for various expressions of mine in my last response. I hope you were not hurt, and if so I ask your forgiveness.

I imagine that your objections to premise D are no longer in force, because my explanation of it in my last response was probably acceptable to you, and I just needed to emphasize that we are dealing with specific and detailed metaphysical positions, not general metaphysical positions.
I want to further substantiate premise F and premises H–I, so that I can clarify that these premises are the more reasonable and more plausible premises of the believing and intelligent person.

Premise F: There is no logical obstacle to thinking that the prophets orally transmitted metaphysical/prophetic information (whatever it may have been) to the sages of their generation (in addition to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)), and so on until the Sages put into writing traditions from the prophets that they had in their possession. On the contrary, this is the more natural line of reasoning, since God wants us to know various metaphysical facts and the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) itself is not always clear. Therefore it is reasonable that the prophets orally transmitted metaphysical facts to the sages of their generation, etc.
In addition, I want to show from the sources that the Sages used metaphysical information they received by tradition. In the Talmud, tractate Gittin (56b), it is told about Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai, who met Vespasian and addressed him as the king of Rome. Vespasian said that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was liable to death, because he was not king, and Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai explained that Jerusalem would only be handed over to a king, and since Jerusalem was being handed over to him, he must certainly be king. And he explained this through interpretations of verses so far from the plain meaning of Scripture as “And Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one…,” etc.
Question: Should we think that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai was so foolish that he relied on mere speculation based on interpretations of verses so far from the plain meaning of Scripture, and was willing to make himself liable to death for them (his aim was precisely to stay alive and rehabilitate Judaism after the destruction of the Second Temple)?
Answer: Most likely, Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai received these verse interpretations in tradition, and therefore he was so certain of them and did not fear for his life. That is the interpretation by reasoning of Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai’s words.
In the midrash Avot de-Rabbi Natan (composed in the period of the Tannaim, with the later editing we have usually dated to the middle of the Geonic period), this event is also documented, and the exchange between Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai and Vespasian is brought as follows:
“[Vespasian] said to him: Are you Rabbi Yohanan ben Zakkai? Ask what I shall give you. He said to him: I ask of you only Yavneh. I will go and teach my disciples there, and establish prayer there, and perform there all the commandments stated in the Torah. He said to him: Go, and whatever you want to do, do. He said to him: Would you like me to tell you one thing? He said to him: Say it. He said to him: You are now standing in kingship. He said to him: How do you know? He said to him: Thus it has been transmitted to us, that the Temple is not delivered into the hand of an ordinary man, but only into the hand of a king, as it is said: ‘And He shall cut down the thickets of the forest with iron, and Lebanon shall fall by a mighty one.’”
Notice that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai answers Vespasian: “Thus it has been transmitted to us.”
So here we have evidence from a literary source of the Sages (and not only compelling reasoning) that Rabban Yohanan ben Zakkai testified that the sages possessed prophetic information received through tradition about the identity and title of the destroyer of the Temple.

Premises H–I: As stated, one can conjecture by reasoning about general metaphysical facts, but it is very foolish to rely on such reasoning, because these matters cannot be verified except through mystical revelation from the spiritual world. How much more so with specific and detailed metaphysical facts, where even reasoning has no legitimacy, because there is no basis on which the reasoning can be founded.
There are many metaphysical facts (general and specific) in the literature of the Sages, and the question arises: how did the Sages know these metaphysical and prophetic facts?
Answer: There are four possibilities for the metaphysical and prophetic information that appears in the sources of the Sages:

1) inventions and lies
2) interpretive reasoning from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)
3) oral tradition from the prophets
4) the holy spirit of the Sages

I want to address option 2 and clarify whether it is really a legitimate possibility, assuming we truly believe in the integrity of the Sages.
In the literature of the Sages there are very specific metaphysical and prophetic messages that do not appear in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), such as: what a person is asked in the heavenly court, the roles and names of angels, various descriptions of the Garden of Eden and Gehinnom, etc.
Question: Did the Sages merely reason out these facts?
Answer: Hard to believe, because even if one reasons in the metaphysical realm, one still needs some sort of background on which to base the reasoning, and not just invent metaphysical facts out of nothing.
The sources of the Sages are full of metaphysical and prophetic information that has no trace in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and this metaphysical information is very specific and detailed. So the question arises: on what basis could they have grounded such reasoning when it is so specific and detailed and has no trace in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh)?
Answer: Someone who truly believes in the integrity of the Sages has no reason to assume this possibility.
The Sages, in their integrity—even if they gave us interpretations of the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) based on reasoning—probably would not waste time on random speculations without any biblical basis, and certainly not in the factual, specific, and detailed manner in which it appears in their sources. Because then it would no longer be interpretive reasoning based on the biblical verses (since there is no basis), but baseless inventions without any grounding in biblical truth, and therefore such facts would amount to inventions and lies of the Sages.

Which means we are left with three possibilities:

1) inventions and lies
2) oral tradition from the prophets
3) the holy spirit of the Sages

Someone who believes in the Oral Torah tradition of the Sages certainly will not accept the first possibility of inventions and lies, because his faith / belief rests on the reliability of the Sages’ integrity, and therefore this possibility is not legitimate from his point of view either.

Which means we are left with two possibilities:

1) oral tradition from the prophets
2) the holy spirit of the Sages

Someone who believes in the integrity of the Sages will have no difficulty accepting these two possibilities, since both are plausible both by reasoning and are documented in the sources of the Sages, and therefore he will accept them without reason for doubt.
1) The oral metaphysical tradition of the Sages from the prophets is logical both by reasoning and from evidence in their sources.
2) The holy spirit of the Sages is documented in their sources, and we know there is a possibility of the holy spirit in the literal sense from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) (that is the reason we believe in the Torah of Israel), and the stories of the Sages’ spiritual attainments are written in such a way that we have no reason to assume that they are metaphor, but rather authentic documentation of the Sages’ spiritual attainments.

Therefore premises H–I are the premises naturally required of one who truly believes in the integrity of the Sages. As stated, if we believe in the integrity of the Sages, then we hold that they possessed a metaphysical tradition from the prophets and also possessed the holy spirit in the literal sense themselves, so there is no logical obstacle to our concluding that both the general metaphysical facts and the specific and detailed metaphysical facts that appear in their sources are the fruit of the metaphysical tradition from the prophets and the fruit of their own holy spirit, and therefore they are the correct and true facts.

I wasn’t offended at all, and everything is fine. I also didn’t see any offensive expression.
But as I said, I can’t continue a fragmented discussion with gaps like these. I explained my position, and the one who chooses will choose. All the best.

Summary:

1) Human reasoning is limited and often turns out to be mistaken; all the more so in the realm of metaphysics and prophecy, where the human intellect (philosophical and scientific) has no ability to verify spiritual facts. Therefore, the dictate of reason instructs us not to rely on reasoning in metaphysical and prophetic positions.

2) The blessed Creator is beyond all human grasp in His essence and abilities, and we have nothing except what He has revealed to us in His messages that appear in the sacred writings. Therefore, any position whose source is philosophy or science against what God has revealed to us in the sacred writings is void from the outset.

3) The dictate of reason instructs us to choose metaphysical positions attained only through the holy spirit.

4) One who believes only in the holy spirit of the prophets—the dictate of reason instructs him that the only relevant authoritative source for him in choosing metaphysical positions is the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), and its traditional metaphysical positions are the opposite of your new metaphysical positions.

5) One who believes only in the holy spirit of the prophets and of the Sages—the dictate of reason instructs him that the only relevant authoritative sources for him in choosing metaphysical positions are the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) and the literature of the Sages, and their traditional metaphysical positions are the opposite of your new metaphysical positions.

6) One who believes in the holy spirit of the prophets, the Sages, and kabbalists (that is my group)—the dictate of reason instructs him that the only relevant authoritative sources for him in choosing metaphysical positions are: the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh), the literature of the Sages, and books of Kabbalah, and their traditional metaphysical positions are the opposite of your new metaphysical positions.

When one studies these six points carefully, and understands that they are the dictate of reason for the believing and intelligent person, then you have to ask yourself: what are you relying on for your new metaphysical positions, when your new positions have no basis in the holy spirit and your reliance on philosophy and science is void from the outset?

The purpose of my correspondence with you was to show you that there is no logic in your new metaphysical positions, if you are a rational person who truly believes in the Torah of Israel.
I hope you will be honest enough to accept the truth and change your new groundless metaphysical positions to the traditional, logical, and true positions of the Torah of Israel, and thereby merit to bring many back from sin and greatly sanctify the name of the blessed Lord.

With the blessing, “May your strength be for Torah,” and sincere wishes that you succeed in doing God’s will in all that you turn to, both materially and spiritually, and that all your wishes be fulfilled for good,

Anonymous