Question

Hello Rabbi,
I recently came across your positions on various issues. As with anyone, some things are convincing and some less so. Correct me if I’m mistaken, but I detect in your approach updated Leibowitzian tones for our generation, since I’ve seen statements like: there is no such thing as an idea of Judaism, Torah study is first and foremost determining Jewish law, and the like. All of this seems completely unfounded to me when one looks at the great treasure of Jewish thought, and at how relatively small the proportion of commandments in the Hebrew Bible (Tanakh) is compared to the history and the general maxims of wisdom. One can certainly be pluralistic and open-minded, but to reject the basic principle that there are beliefs that are inside and beliefs that are outside seems to me a logical contradiction, and not only in Judaism but in any field whatsoever. I am an extremely rational person, but even so I do not allow myself to decide that all of my insights are Judaism proper. I have views that are very incompatible with the classical beliefs of the various religious groups, but I know which category to place them in. Not everything one thinks is correct immediately becomes Torah. In my view, that was Maimonides’ great mistake: he wanted to Judaize Aristotle at any cost. Simply folly. And even if you go in the opposite direction, that too seems to me equally mistaken.