Q&A: The Survival of the Jewish People
The Survival of the Jewish People
Question
Regarding your claim in the trilogy and in the last lesson in the series on faith / belief, that the survival of the Jewish people is not necessarily due to divine intervention, since it could also stem from our culture through the Torah, I saw in Reason To Believe by Rabbi David Gottlieb that he reviews all the historians’ different explanations for survival and proves that none of them really hold water, so perforce this is a supernatural phenomenon.
Answer
I’m glad for this report. But as long as you don’t present the arguments and reasons here, it’s hard for me to respond. At first glance it is clear to me that he is mistaken. In history there are no miracles in that sense. Only in physics are there.
Discussion on Answer
Because in history there are no absolute deterministic laws. For everything that happens, an explanation can be found.
You too prove something supernatural—namely revelation—from history.
By the way, Rabbi Gottlieb also agrees that even if a connection were found between our culture and survival, we would still need to explain where it came from and why only we have such a culture, as your honor wrote. Only in practice, even that is not what we see.
The fact that something has an explanation doesn’t mean there was no intervention in it, just a subtler kind of intervention.
Within,
What does the Sabbatical year have to do with an omelet? I’m not proving anything from the fact that there is a historical phenomenon that cannot be explained. I’m making the historical claim that there was a revelation. What does that have to do with this?
Roy,
That’s a common mistake. I’ve explained it here more than once. If there is an explanation, then there is no intervention. And even the possibility of an explanation undermines the proof of intervention.
I’d appreciate a reference.
See, for example, column 280 and also 297, and many others. And of course at length in the second book of the trilogy.
You prove from the rarity of our history, which cannot be explained naturally, that there was a revelation. Don’t you?
Absolutely not.
So what do you want to prove from the uniqueness of the Jewish people?
By the way, am I the only one having technical problems with the responsa section?
So what do you want to prove from the uniqueness of the Jewish people??
What would be the basis for distinguishing between history and physics?