Q&A: Learning from History: The Fine Distinction
Learning from History: The Fine Distinction
Question
Happy holiday!
In the first volume, you give a range of considerations for the validity of revelation and add broader considerations as well — among them you include what can be learned from the unique history of the Jewish people, and you also add the fulfillment of prophecies. From this you conclude that we are unique.
In No Man Has Power over the Wind, you devote a chapter to the claim that one cannot really learn anything (metaphysical) from history, since it is so complex, and everyone learns from it whatever they want to get out of it.
What is the difference? To say that we are unique, and that the nations of the world, “consciously and even more so unconsciously,” as you put it, notice this — isn’t that learning metaphysics from history?
Answer
Why metaphysics? This uniqueness is a simple fact.
Beyond that, I also learn metaphysics from physical facts (that there is God). When I said that nothing can be learned, I meant specific ideological claims.
Discussion on Answer
Heretics and idol worshippers need revelations, prophecies, and other magic tricks in order to lend an ear and listen to anything.
Without those, they would be sure that they themselves are god — like the belief of every ordinary heretic.
We’re not dealing here with dictionary definitions. One can learn from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) that God exists and that the Torah was given; if you want to call that ideology or metaphysics, suit yourself. My claim is that, in general, it is impossible to learn anything specific from the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) beyond the basic things that we all already know (and therefore there is no point in dealing with it, aside from the intrinsic value of Torah study).
Rabbi, pardon me, but I was asking about metaphysical facts from history and with no connection at all to the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh).
What you answered me here is that learning from history about the uniqueness of the Jewish people is a simple fact, and that there are all sorts of things connected to this that are not really related to simple facts (for example, your claim that the nations of the world consciously and unconsciously demand a different standard from Israel). You are basically claiming that we have a special status not merely because we have a unique philosophy but because we are unique in an essential way. From what I understand, that is really metaphysics.
And then you also said that you learn from the physical facts that there is God. Again, that too, as I understand it, is a metaphysical conclusion.
That’s why I didn’t understand why afterward you claim that in fact nothing metaphysical can be learned from history (because everyone can learn from it whatever they want, so there is no point in it).
“In general, it is impossible to learn anything specific from the Hebrew Bible beyond the basic things that we all already know”
As I have already pointed out several times, the Oral Torah was necessary if only because otherwise the heretics would have gone off to graze in foreign pastures and the Torah would have disappeared. That is the meaning of preserving the Torah. The Sages made sure that Jews would keep the Torah despite heresy.
Pardon me, but with so many questions they are already getting mixed up for me — learning from the Hebrew Bible or from history — especially since the question and answer in those two cases are similar.
But I did answer your question even if the wording was about the Hebrew Bible (learn it from there): 1. This is not really metaphysics but pointing to facts. The uniqueness of a people is not necessarily metaphysics. It can be rooted in its culture. By the way, I wrote this explicitly in the second book. 2. Just as one learns from physical facts about the theory, one can learn from historical facts about the theory (that there is God). This is a principled and general claim. My statement was about specific claims (for or against Zionism, for example; the punishment and lessons of the Holocaust, and the like).
At least I came away with the impression from what you wrote in the first book, regarding the whole issue of antisemitism and the attitude of the nations of the world toward us, that you really, really see it as a metaphysical matter
I understand.
But isn’t the fact that there is God considered a kind of ideology?
Maybe it would be better if I asked: what do you define as ideology, and what do you define as “specific ideological claims”?