Q&A: Advice for Continuing
Advice for Continuing
Question
You convinced me. I used to be a non-believer — today I am a deist, and the trend is still continuing.
On the subject of Mount Sinai — I accept that apparently something happened there. Not near-total certainty, not even very deep conviction. Just “definitely plausible.”
As an example, it seems definitely plausible to me that Neil Armstrong landed on the moon, and the conspiratorial claim that the whole thing was staged sounds very far-fetched to me. At the same time, I do not find it delusional. I would not fall off my chair if it turned out to be a conspiracy. It is indeed an option.
To give a sense of what I mean, a factual claim about a historical event that I accept as almost completely certain is that in Auschwitz hundreds of thousands of Jews were murdered in gas chambers. The conspiratorial claim that the gas chambers are an invention seems delusional to me.
The revelation at Mount Sinai belongs, for me, to the first category and not the second.
So now the question of commitment to Jewish law arises. Should the level of certainty I have regarding Mount Sinai lead me to observe Torah and commandments?
If I had consistent trust in the chain of transmission, I think there would be very significant grounds for saying yes. That is, if I thought the tradition was very reliable and had managed to preserve almost perfectly what was given at Sinai, that would probably persuade me that I should act accordingly. For example, if someone offered me an investment opportunity in a financial instrument that would earn me money if Apollo 11 really happened, I would most likely jump at the opportunity. “Definitely plausible” is certain enough to make decisions with serious practical consequences. I probably would not bet my life on it, because after all there is still room for doubt here.
On the other hand, if the chain of transmission were fundamentally flawed in my eyes — meaning, it certainly preserved something, but who knows what that is, and it is very plausible that most of it is nonsense — then I no longer see a reason to observe the commandments.
If the chain of transmission is fundamentally flawed, but the level of certainty regarding Mount Sinai goes up a notch — say, certainty comparable to what I have regarding the Holocaust — then maybe I would still accept that there is a need to observe the commandments. After all, the event at Mount Sinai is so dramatic that I would be willing to take the risk of being mistaken about invented or inaccurate commandments, because this is what we have, and this is what we’ll work with.
The problem is that I do not have much trust in the chain of transmission. I come from a secular background, so maybe this comes from ignorance, but on the face of it I do not see any special reason to believe that they managed to pass information on by word of mouth for hundreds of years in a reliable way that deserves serious consideration. Even the biblical text itself, as far as I know, may have been written only around 2,000 years ago or so, and while some of the events in it happened, and especially the revelation at Mount Sinai, I do not see any special reason to accept the originality דווקא of the legal sections. For example, my confidence that at Mount Sinai an instruction was given forbidding the eating of leavened food on Passover is extremely low. Maybe yes, maybe no, I have no idea, and I do not see any special reason to think one way or the other.
That is the current state of affairs I am in. I will add and emphasize that for me, as a secular person, taking on commitment to Jewish law is a pretty serious burden. The Sabbath is a lovely idea in principle, but its implementation is very inconvenient, kashrut is oppressive, prayers seem downright awful to me, and there are things even worse than that. In other words, there are very good reasons not to accept commitment to the commandments, and therefore a very good reason is needed in order to insist on them. Just “fairly plausible” is not enough. At the very least it needs to be “definitely plausible,” even if not “plausible to the point of near-certainty.”
The question I am asking you is how, in your view, it would be right to move forward from the stage I am at now. I assume that from your perspective, as a Jewish rabbi, a theist who believes in the Torah of Moses, there is value for you in guiding me toward a correct understanding and correct conduct. In particular:
Do you think I should delve more deeply into the issue of Mount Sinai? That is, in your view, if one goes deeper or more precisely into this historical issue, does one usually discover that it is possible to reach a higher level of certainty than just “definitely plausible”?
Alternatively, do you think I should delve more deeply into the reliability of the chain of transmission? That is, do you think there are good and effective arguments that would lead a reasonable and honest person to become convinced that the biblical and Mishnaic texts are in fact an excellent reflection, even if not a perfect one, of what was given at Mount Sinai?
Or perhaps, as a philosopher of Judaism and as someone with much experience teaching these topics, do you think there is a fundamental flaw in the general way I am relating to the matter, as I presented it? Are there other considerations for why one should observe the commandments?
Thank you very much
Answer
Hello.
It is very hard to quantify the level of reliability of such a tradition. It is also hard to persuade, or even to discuss it. Your basic way of thinking is correct in my opinion, with a few comments (see below). But unlike you, I think that factually it is indeed definitely plausible.
My comments are that there is no necessity to think that the entire Torah we have in our hands was given at Sinai, and certainly not the Oral Torah. Even if some core was given and the Holy One commanded us to observe it, then He certainly took into account that over the generations we would interpret the matter, and it was with that in mind that He gave it to us. He even writes in the Torah, “Do not deviate,” meaning an obligation to follow the interpretation and legislation of the sages. Therefore, there is no necessity that every detail we have was given at Sinai in order for us to be obligated to the system, including the details that were not given there (and the overwhelming majority were not given there).
In general, I definitely think that the level of reliability you attribute to the system should affect your level of commitment to it and the prices you are willing to pay. That is very sensible. I have written and said more than once that I am not sure I would carry out horrific instructions of Jewish law when I reached a situation in which I would be obligated to do so. Killing babies, stoning Sabbath desecrators, leaving a gentile to die on the Sabbath, giving up one’s life for sanctification of God’s name, and the like. Beyond other interpretations that I can offer for each of those instructions, my level of trust in the system is not so absolute that I would feel confident carrying out such acts. My uncertainty is not only with regard to the revelation at Mount Sinai but also with regard to the interpretation that was given to these matters over the generations. The interpreters were human beings and could make mistakes. As I said, I am committed to that interpretation (at any rate to its binding core), but there is a limit to the price I will pay for that commitment.
Discussion on Answer
And one more thing — what emerges from your words is that it is of essential and special importance to recognize that one of the things that came down at Sinai was the very granting of authority to the sages and interpreters, and the very importance of group belonging to the Jewish people as a whole. If one accepts that it is definitely plausible that this was one of the things that came down at Sinai, it follows that it is not really crucial to know exactly what came down there and what did not, because I am obligated to the interpretation of the sages as the mouth that was accepted by the people. Am I right?
The difference is not at all on the phenomenological (descriptive) plane, that is, in the facts: what one does and does not do. The question is why you do not do it. If you do not do it because you are not sure and the moral price is heavy, then you are not “religious according to what feels good.” If you do not do it because you just do not feel like it right now, then you are.
Indeed. That is written in “Do not deviate.” And reason also points that way.
The sages also have the power to uproot the Torah passively (passive omission) and, more rarely, also actively (positive action). Even if there is certainty, the sages can decide that there is a reason not to do things because of desecration of God’s name, or in order to preserve general goals (“It is a time to act for the Lord; they have violated Your Torah”). Maybe even if it becomes possible for us to offer sacrifices, the sages will decide that at the present stage it is still too early.
“A heavy moral price” — is that essential here? I agree that there is an essential difference between not doing something because I am in a moral conflict, and not doing something because I just do not feel like it.
But what if it is not that I do not feel like it, but that there is a very heavy personal price here? Something substantial that is liable to cause me great and prolonged suffering. This is not connected to morality, because I do not think I am harming anyone else (though maybe it is not moral to suffer). In that case, am I still not “religious according to what feels good”?
I wrote my opinion. When a person does not do it because of laxity, but because of the price, he is not “religious according to what feels good” (in the negative sense). I mean both a personal price and a moral price. What they have in common is that he is acting on the basis of a rational calculation and not because of impulse.
Thank you very much.
How do I manage to draw a clear distinction on the thin line between not observing Jewish law because the level of trust is not absolute enough to do something I strongly recoil from, and a “religious according to what feels good,” who observes only what feels right to me?
Wouldn’t you refrain from taking part in the stoning of Sabbath desecrators because it (*really*) “doesn’t feel right” to you? Meaning, a kind of “religious according to what feels good,” just with a quantitative difference? Or is there a clear qualitative difference here, one that is simply hard to formalize?