Hello,

In my opinion this is not silly pilpul. The difficulty for your position is quite obvious.

1. (A) Let’s start with this: you wrote in your book that one cannot measure righteousness. Now your claim is that at the level of the public, and even at the level of the individual (what you wrote in section 3), you actually can see where there is more righteousness. Strange.

(B) If we are already talking about measuring “righteousness,” who says that a Haredi person who was taught from age 0 that it is forbidden to eat milk and meat together, and forbidden to touch a menstruating woman, gets credit points for that over a child captured among the gentiles who was taught exactly the opposite?

(C) Even if Haredim really do observe more commandments like “putting on tefillin” or “Torah study” and so on, who says that this is necessarily more important than a secular soldier who risks his life for the Jewish people in war?
Very nice to discover that you work as the Holy One’s accountant general. Delightful!

(D) After all, you yourself argue that the Haredi public does truly shocking things toward the public—disregards human life and contributes to spreading disease, does not participate in the productive sector, prevents its children from having normal lives (does not teach core curriculum, etc.), everything you told about fraud and corruption that you personally experienced from that sector when you lived in the south of the country (things you wrote)—if so, even if they had more commandments to their credit by your view (and again, that is in great doubt in my opinion), even by your own view, why would God have mercy on them? The flawed things they do are very serious, according to you.

2. Here I agree with you. Anyone who really thinks the Haredi public (or any other public) are companies of “ministering angels” will indeed have a hard time with this. But as I wrote before, there is the excuse of reincarnation of souls, or other bookkeeping-management excuses.
But I am not attacking them; I am raising a difficulty for your approach. So this section is less relevant.

3. (A) Again, it is not clear to me how you write “behave properly,” while on the other hand in your book you wrote that you do not think it is possible to “measure righteousness.” Moreover, if memory serves me, you wrote that you do not know of even one person today who can be called righteous, perhaps only Rabbi Aryeh Levin of blessed memory.
How do you know that they indeed “behave properly” in the Haredi or Religious Zionist public?
Have you heard about the percentages of coerced ones that exist in those sectors—
people who look as though they observe Torah and commandments, but in practice they . . .

(B) I do not know what each person experiences. And the video you posted here in the past of Rabbi Steinman strengthens what you hold. But I can testify about myself that for me the matter of involvement does fit together with the matter of human effort. There are many others who think so, and I believe them even though I do not really know what they experience. . . The fact that you think it is all slogans and nonsense—that is your choice.

All right, I really don’t have the energy for this. It is self-evident and everything has been answered.

Which of the Rabbi’s students is willing to explain how it can be that on the one hand the Rabbi admits that righteousness cannot be measured, but on the other hand it is completely clear to him that in the Haredi public (which he so heavily denounces for its sins) there are many righteous people?

I see contradiction upon contradiction here.
But since the Rabbi claims the topic has been ground exceedingly fine, surely his students know how to answer this or at least point to the relevant sources that explain it, and therefore I am also turning to the Rabbi’s students.

Let me sharpen and summarize the questions for the Rabbi’s students who are used to and live by his words:

(A) According to Michi’s view, can one measure righteousness?

(B) If one cannot measure righteousness, how do we know that there is a high level of righteousness (which supposedly brings about particular providence) among the Haredi public?

(C) If the Haredi public (for example) sins so much in endangering human life, parasitism on the public, neglect of its children, and fraud (according to the testimony and articles of Rabbi Michi himself), why according to one who holds like Rabbi Michi would we need to see this public as being providentially watched over?

After all, one can assume that such grave things cancel out all the commandments done by the Haredi public, no?

Blessings to whoever answers!

I am still waiting for one of the Rabbi’s students who is expert in his views and words to answer the questions.
From what I understood, everything has already been discussed and published in the books and on this blog.

They answered you above.

Hi Ben Yishai.
I didn’t understand the Rabbi’s answers.
Want to explain?

Let’s start with the first question—
does the Rabbi’s position hold that we can measure righteousness or not?
After I get an answer (it can even be one word), we’ll move on.

Many thanks.

Yes, we can.

So now we can move on.
I understand from your words that according to Rabbi Michi’s view, one can measure righteousness.
Here is a quote from the second book in his trilogy (page 175):

"""It is important to me to clarify that I do not mean to say that one can measure righteousness. Clearly not . . ."""

Also, I recall another place in the book where he wrote that he does not know whether one can say even about a single person in our day that he is righteous, perhaps not even one—but I am not sure about the exact wording, so for now let us focus on the first quotation I brought.

Let us proceed by another question:

If you claim that you understood from Rabbi Michi that one can measure righteousness, how can it be that his book says he holds the opposite—can the two things be reconciled, or is this your misunderstanding of the Rabbi, or a mistake in the book?

You can’t measure at a precise level and say this one gets 84.5 and that one gets 72.99841. But yes, you can say that Rabbi Elyashiv was more righteous than a vile criminal like Meyer Lansky.

You clarified that Rabbi Michi holds that one cannot evaluate a person in an absolute way, but one can give a relative estimate. You gave an *unfair* example between a Jew one could bet is elite, and a Jew who apparently was a mass murderer.

My next question to you is this:
Let us ignore the very extreme example you gave (Rabbi Elyashiv versus a murderer).
Take a group of 1,000 average secular people, the kind who probably do not put on tefillin, do not keep kosher, etc., as opposed to a group of 1,000 average Haredim.
Here are the facts:
The average Haredi was accustomed and influenced from age 0 to observe Jewish law and study Torah, etc.
The average secular person “learned” Torah in school via biblical criticism; most likely there was generally no kashrut observed at his family table, he was not educated to keep away from a menstruating woman, etc.

Also, beyond the purely halakhic issue, it is known that the average secular person contributes to the Jewish people by enlisting in the army,
as opposed to a Haredi who does not enlist, for example. That is, morally speaking, one cannot know whether one side or the other has an advantage.

As someone representing Rabbi Michi’s approach, can you estimate that if there were intervention by God, then necessarily the average Haredi would have an advantage over the secular person because he observed commandments (also) because he had a better starting environment?

Before you answer, please read about the concept of “a child captured among the gentiles.”
You will see that most *Haredi* rabbis support and recognize this concept.
If indeed that concept is real (one cannot really know), do you still think it is fair to compare secular people and Haredim?

You can’t measure at fine resolutions because who knows things that are hidden and in a person’s heart. But yes, you can measure at coarse resolutions.

From the standpoint of reward and punishment (in this world or the next) it works like this: a secular, child-captured, standard atheist—there is no reason to punish him, because he is not rebelling against commands he knows. But there is also no reason to reward him, because he did not obey commands he knows. A Haredi is entitled to reward for all the commandments he does and the transgressions he refrains from. That is self-evident.
The public conduct of the Haredi sector is beneath all criticism. In addition, it is not far-fetched to compare them to someone who steals a lulav and performs the commandment of waving it with it, so that all his commandments are through a transgression. But an “ordinary” Haredi is not aware of the basic distortion within which he lives, so he should not be punished for that.
In short, it is obvious that if there is reward in this world (providence), then an ordinary Haredi deserves more of it than an ordinary secular person. Even “according to Rabbi Michi’s view.”
But all this is unnecessary, because it is obvious that an “exemplary Haredi” deserves more than an “exemplary secular person” or an “ordinary secular person,” and then those can be compared and examined to see whether there is providence in this world.

And all this is because you insist on discussing specifically according to Rabbi Michi’s view and not according to your own. Between the folds it seems that you are suggesting there is providence in this world and everything is minutely calibrated as reward and punishment, and the reason we see no difference is because by some miracle everyone is in fact equal before God due to various pilpulim. That is not a serious position.

(A) You are not a prophet, and yet you claim that on the basis of your wisdom you know how God ought to manage His accounts. There is no shortage of secular people with similar lines like: “I believe in God, and believe me, all these Haredim are wicked.” And of course also Religious Zionists who think they are the righteous ones. And let us add Satmar too, who think Zionism is terrible heresy, and therefore most Haredim who live in the Land and recognize the State participate in heresy . . .
Does it seem normal to you that you reached a conclusion about how it would make sense for God to manage His accounts?

(B) Totally cool to see that Rabbi Michi holds that one cannot learn from history, and one of the reasons for that is that there are so many opinions, and if God wanted to convey a message to us, everything should have been clearer . . .
But in contrast, regarding providence and intervention, he is not bothered that there are many opinions. Everything is already clear on the basis of logic.
We must not even entertain why God sends us corona, and a rabbi who tries to suggest an explanation is not serious, because it is known that “God is not trying to tell us anything.”
But on the other hand Michi and his students do know how God ought to manage His accounts. Sorry, but this is ridiculous.

(C) You ignored the fact that on the moral level there is no difference between the average Haredi and the average secular person, and of course also that secular people are more connected to the collective of the Jewish people and perhaps have an advantage in that. Likewise, morally speaking secular people are more compassionate toward all creation in general (for example, a higher percentage of vegetarians).
You also ignored that there are other issues like reincarnation of souls; perhaps the reward for commandments (not for morality) is specifically in the World to Come. Likewise, perhaps there are other calculations—sins of fathers upon sons, etc.
You (and Michi) look at it only within the reality of this world, and dismiss every other explanation. It is not serious to attack a straw man.

(D) Your attempt to make it seem as though Haredim sin mainly because of faulty “public conduct” is not honest. In my humble opinion, Haredim sin, *at their own level*, not a little.
Proof of this—just in recent years hundreds (if not thousands) of coerced people have left the Haredi world and become non-religious.
Before leaving religion they looked like “average Haredim” (while in practice desecrating the Sabbath in their rooms).
They claim there are many, many like that among them who remain living that way because they have no choice.
Who knows how many such “average Haredim” there are nowadays . . .
Again, remember that you do not see into a person’s heart. Not everyone who puts on tefillin in the morning and waves a lulav in the sukkah is truly connected to it.
Also, you are invited to look at the website B’Hadrei Haredim (a site where average Haredim write, no?) and see how much filth and evil speech there is there.
Therefore it is very, very far from certain that the average Haredi/religious person (at his own level) is preferable to the average secular person (at his own level).
Only God knows.

(E) As for the claim that even according to Rabbi Michi’s view we should have seen providence over Haredim—I do not agree.
Rabbi Michi often criticizes the Haredi public for its public conduct,
but who says one can infer from this that the average Haredi is not personally part of that sin?
Examples:
1. According to Michi’s view, going up to the graves of righteous people may count as a kind of idolatry (correct me if I am wrong).
If Michi is right in that claim, that means a huge part of the Haredi public are idol worshippers,
which is very severe. So it is no wonder that Haredim seem to suffer in this world exactly like secular people.
2. According to Michi’s view, the Haredim do something very severe by not teaching core curriculum and not preparing their children to live in the real world. So true, that is a decision of the leaders of the Haredi public, but who says the Haredi father and mother have no responsibility for it as well?
According to Michi’s view, it may be that “the average Haredi” sins in possible idolatry and sins in something like “it is as though he taught him banditry.”
It follows that according to Michi’s view, in just these two small examples, the secular person’s situation is much better than that of “the average Haredi.”
So even if we accept that God must necessarily show providence specifically in this world (according to you and according to Michi), after Michi’s own view of the Haredi world, it is obvious that one would not see providence over the “average Haredi.”

(F) Even if someone still thinks that the Haredi/religious person deserves more even in this world,
I will just note that studies show that religious and believing people (not necessarily Jews) are happier. I have not checked how reliable they are. But if they are reliable, perhaps one could attribute this to reward received in this world and not to some psychological motive or another?
Who says divine intervention in this world does not find expression in making a person happier?

All right, I’m tired. To split hairs here over every detail would take years, and I don’t think anything significant will be added here. Come, you propose your own approach: is it possible to make statistics that would prove there is providence in this world? If yes, then what are they (in detail)? If not, then why is it impossible, and why think that despite this there is providence?

Before I explain why I believe in it—

Rabbi Michi’s claim that we should already have seen particular providence in this world (in the way he attacks the issue) is simply incorrect.

There are two factors that would give Michi’s claim force, and only if both existed together:

(A) To know with certainty that Heaven’s calculations are supposed to be expressed in this world, without reincarnation of souls, the World to Come, sins of fathers, etc.
(B) To know that there is a righteous population that does not sin at all.

Since there is no way to know anything about either of these two points, it is not clear what Michi is attacking. It is amazing how in his book he evades a real presentation of Judaism’s position on this by claiming that “they shouldn’t tell me stories.”

Moreover, there are sources that from the outset show that what he claims is mistaken, for example:
“There is no reward for commandments in this world.”

Why think there is providence nonetheless?

(1) Michi writes in his book, as best I remember, that general providence is ultimately providence over individuals. So anyone who holds that general providence necessarily indicates divine involvement (as opposed to Michi, who denies even that), must also hold that there is particular providence.

(2) Intuition.

(3) There are cases in the Torah in which the Holy One intervenes in reality, and it is fairly clear that a hidden miracle is involved here (Joseph being rescued from the pit).

(4) The view of almost all our sages.

Now I will ask you a question—

Why do you believe in the World to Come?

It is not mentioned in the Torah . . .
We have no intuition for it . . .

The case for the World to Come ought to be harder than for “divine involvement” . . .