Elchanan, well done on the summary.
If you’re willing to share, I’d be glad to know how this comes to expression in your everyday life in terms of the people around you.
1. Do you hide it from the other kollel members or share it? When there’s a discussion in the study hall, do you bring up these points to support your reasoning about the topic being discussed?
2. Do you actively try to persuade others of these points?
3. Is your family aware of these changes in your outlook, and if so, how is it received?
4. Do you still say little Torah thoughts on the weekly Torah portion at the Sabbath table, and if so how do you deal with the “contradiction” between your inner world and your outward presentation to the family?
5. Any other aspect in this context that you’re willing to share…

Rabbi – maybe it’s worth pinning this thread, because it sums up your views in a concise and clear way (even if perhaps not necessarily precisely accurate from your perspective).

It is indeed a good and comprehensive list, but I don’t think it’s worth pinning on the site.

To the Lithuanian writer,

I have no idea what is customary among Lithuanian learners, but among Religious Zionists, almost all these points are well known, and there is nothing especially unusual in what Michi holds.

A few comments:
Section 2 – this is the opinion of almost all secular people who are not atheists. They call God “a higher power that created everything.”

Section 3 – there is no necessity to believe that they had divine inspiration. Anyone who wants to accept that is welcome to.

Section 5 – who exactly thinks the Talmud has essential authority?
For example, as far as I know there are health funds in Haredi neighborhoods, and people do not open the Talmud when they don’t feel well.

Section 7 – what is Michi’s novelty here? Who exactly claims that Kabbalah has formal authority?
Kabbalah is a description of the “behind the scenes” of the world. And even if somehow there turn out to be disputes between Kabbalah and Jewish law (very rare), it is well known that when there is a dispute between Jewish law and Kabbalah, one follows Jewish law.

Section 8 – the fact that you have no idea whether it will happen does not necessarily mean that you don’t believe in it. In any case these concepts are rather vague, so it is hard to say what exactly it means to “believe” in them or to say “I have no idea if it will happen.”

Section 11 – here I really, really do not understand what the novelty is. It is well known that common decency precedes the Torah, no?
As for this obligating because there is a God, that is a philosophical position. You could say it obligates you because you feel it makes you feel good. That’s also fine.

Section 13 – why shouldn’t there be value in little Torah insights on the Torah just because everyone does whatever comes into his head?
If each person connects it to faith in the Creator of the world, and in positive ways, then what’s the problem?
Why shouldn’t you be interested in hearing a Torah idea that connects you to the Creator of the world?
This is not some “great innovation” of Michi’s. It just sounds very puzzling and not serious.

Section 14 – that’s interesting. Strange that this is what Michi holds. I remember Michi writing very harsh things about secular Sabbath desecrators in public who intellectually should have reached the conclusion that there is a God (quite a few of them are sincere and upright).
Strange.

Section 15 – until today did you really think that someone born non-Jewish who even worshipped idols, because he was educated that way, would burn in hell?
According to what is known from the Hebrew Bible, the Holy One, blessed be He, aims to repair creation, not to punish it “for no reason.”
I have no idea how a standard Lithuanian yeshiva person arrived at the conclusion that God burns those who did not worship Him.

By the way, just out of curiosity, how is it that you accept the concept of hell literally enough to use it in discussion, but the concepts of resurrection of the dead and messiah you can’t really accept or even believe exist? What practical difference is there between messiah and hell?

Hello,
To The Recommender:
1. Depends on what. Some things I share with people who understand. And I also change the language and phrasing. Some things people think anyway, just without being aware of it.

2. Nonstop. I’m addicted.

My family knows. Not everything; they don’t always understand the implications. Recently I opened everything up with my father, and in the end I came to the conclusion that I had just caused him pain for no reason. But we made peace. We’re good friends.

I don’t say little Torah thoughts. I discuss topics like Sabbath laws, free choice, and so on.
There are very difficult moments. Even for my wife it isn’t always easy that I think differently from everyone else.
At a friend’s sheva berakhot, after everyone gave talks and said that everything is from Heaven and that a wife is assigned to a man by God and we do nothing and matches are made in Heaven – I got up and spoke and brought Maimonides, who says that God does not decide matters in which a person has free choice, and I closed the matter with Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman in Kovetz He’arot, who says that the statement “forty days before the formation of the fetus” etc. follows Rabbi Ilai, whose opinion was not ruled as Jewish law.

It was funny and challenging to say there, in front of 50 important avrekhim, that the bride and groom made the decision and are responsible for it. Thank God Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman was there at my side.
They enjoyed it מאוד.

Thank you very much.
1. How do people take it when you base a line of reasoning on those assumptions? Don’t they relate to you like a heretic?
2. You killed me 😀
3. What, for example, don’t they know?
4. Did you never used to say little Torah thoughts, or did that change as a result of the change you went through? Don’t your family and children want to hear something connected after all to the weekly Torah portion?
As for the sheva berakhot, that was indeed bold. On the other hand, is that the place to give a platform to your views? Good thing they enjoyed it in the end 🙂

May I ask how old you are?

Rabbi – maybe you could prepare a concise list of your own regarding your positions, in a style similar to Elchanan’s, that would be worth pinning? I think it would help many readers and questioners on the site.

At the same opportunity, I wanted to ask whether you could formulate a concise list of your various proofs for the existence of the Holy One, blessed be He (both in the religious sense and in the philosophical sense), including perhaps the familiar counterarguments.
Sometimes it happens that I don’t remember them, and something short is enough to spark my memory regarding the details. I’m not talking about all the details of the proofs, which of course are in the books and on the site. I’m asking because you manage to formulate things clearly. I assume it could help many readers of the site and reduce repeated questions.
Thank you for everything.

To the Religious Zionist:
Hello.
That’s not true. I know many religious people, and people will not agree with many of these things.
But regarding the Haredim:
My response to the comments:

Section 2: absolutely not. I am talking about people who believe in a God who is interested in the world and has explicit religious demands, like the Oral Torah, and nevertheless think that God almost never intervenes.
Your secular people are people who believe in a thin philosophical god who wants nothing.

Section 3: lots of people confidently claim that everyone mentioned in the Talmud could resurrect the dead. And there are many who claim that nowadays, because of the decline of the generations, we cannot disagree with medieval authorities. The Hazon Ish, for example, even though he himself disagrees.

Section 5: that’s the point! People live with contradictions! And when they go to a doctor they claim that this is only as a matter of “effort,” and the doctor actually does nothing.
In my house, which is considered open and normal, my father always told us that money does not come from work and God is playing hide-and-seek with us, and whoever truly trusts will receive everything.

Section 7: you’re not right! The attitude of the general public is that one does not argue with Kabbalah, because the Ari had divine inspiration.

Section 8: not true. The attitude in the general public is that someone who does not believe in the concept of messiah or resurrection of the dead is a heretic, because that is what is written in Maimonides’ Thirteen Principles. As for me personally, I simply don’t know. We’ll live and see.

Section 11: absolutely not! The Hazon Ish’s approach is that the Torah decides what is moral. In the case of a priest’s wife who was raped, then it is moral that she become forbidden to her husband. Only from Rabbi Michael did I hear the possibility that there are two separate obligating systems, and sometimes the religious system overrides the moral one, as in the case of a priest’s wife.

Section 13: if it strengthens you, then enjoy.
The claim was that it is almost impossible to aim at the source text’s intent when working without the Talmud, because even the simplest verses, like “an eye for an eye,” are not literal. So it turns out that everyone sees his prior opinions in the Torah.

Section 15: until today I was confused.
But here, for example, Rabbi Pincus brings Maimonides on the Thirteen Principles and argues that whoever does not believe in them, even by mistake, will not enter the World to Come.
He gives the example of a sweet grandmother who spent her whole life doing acts of kindness and reciting Psalms, but thought that God has a body.
That grandmother will not receive the World to Come.

I don’t know what hell is, or in general what there is after death. That was just a manner of speaking.

I don’t have time for this. Whoever wants to can do it.

.

23, no children.
I usually find illustrations the way Rabbi Michael does. For example, Rabbi Elchanan Wasserman and Maimonides.

I don’t issue rulings from the Talmud on my own in kollel; I don’t have the breadth or ability for that right now. Maybe later, though I doubt it.
But I do accept from innovative, talented, knowledgeable, and honest people.

In kollel, for example, they don’t know that I think God doesn’t intervene. Even though most people also think that unconsciously.
But I would argue about the dosage – meaning, how much He does intervene.

At the sheva berakhot they forced me to speak. Let them bear the consequences.
Whoever thinks otherwise is welcome to speak.