Q&A: And Truth Shall Be Missing
And Truth Shall Be Missing
Question
Hello, Rabbi,
A former student of mine, now a department head [from my perspective he is the finest of my students—very talented, a great Torah scholar and a man of kindness], wrote to me the attached piece, along with a short reply from me.
I am sending it to you because you have dealt with this topic very extensively.
Could you comment in a few lines [we understand the point :)], and if you do not have the time, perhaps direct us to an article you wrote on the subject.
With blessings
and thanks
Answer
Rabbi D., hello.
I too, humble as I am, suggested in my book Two Carts the rabbinic midrash in Sotah: “and truth shall be missing”—it will be made into many herds—regarding the postmodern-pluralistic era. There are many truths (herds of truths). Which really means that there is no truth in its classic and traditional sense, and from there we arrive directly at the writer’s interpretive suggestion.
By the way, I cited there a source from the Maharal, Netzach Yisrael ch. 35, who writes this explicitly:
But “and truth shall be missing” implies only that truth will be nullified. Therefore they expounded: “and truth shall be missing” means that it will become many herds and depart. So that you should not say that the lesser people will lie because of their own baseness, and that this is not called that truth has departed, but only that they do not desire truth—for that is not so, because it will not be found at all even among those who are called good. About this it is said that truth has gone away, and truth will not be found. And this is a greater degradation, for if people lie because they are not good, that is not the abolition of truth from the world; rather, creatures are simply not good and therefore come to falsehood, and at times a decent person may be found, and not everyone lies. But in the future truth itself will be removed in itself, and truth will not be found in anyone; rather, every person will be false. And this is a great degradation: that truth itself is not found.
But the rest of his remarks are longing for another age, for redemption, in which truth will be present and not missing (in both senses). And I, humble as I am, wonder how this redemption is supposed to arrive (just like that dispute between Rashi and Rabbi Jacob Ettlinger in Sukkah—the root of Haredi Judaism and Zionism—regarding the descent of the Temple from heaven). If this is about longing, I have nothing to say. Each person has his own regions of longing. Let him write poems for the drawer about it (or articles for the drawer, like this one). But in my humble opinion, we need to bring about this redemption with our own hands (I mean the issue here, not necessarily the building of the Temple). That is what I try to do in almost everything I write. The question is whether he is also willing to contribute to it, and now I will explain how.
It would be very interesting to me to hear more about the practical implications of this approach in the field of medicine, which he hints at in the beginning. If he were to put them in writing in an organized way, with examples and analysis, that would be a step toward advancing redemption (in the sense meant here). When you show people the implications of their views, it has a remarkable power to change opinions (even though superficially this may seem intellectually unfair, and in my view it is not), and as the saying goes, hearts are drawn after actions (of course in a borrowed sense: when one sees the practical implications, one understands that there is a problem in the theory, that is, in the abstract and conceptual assumptions).
Discussion on Answer
I no longer remember what the question was or what I wrote. So I’ll respond to what you wrote here.
First, I really did devote several books to this matter. I’ll write briefly.
The fact that our intuition is not always suited to reality is obvious, and you do not need quantum theory for that. Has it never happened to you that it turned out you were wrong about something you thought intuitively? It has happened to me more than once.
The problem begins when people take that conclusion too far, that is, when they abandon trust in intuition. We have no more fundamental tool than it (both logical-philosophical reasoning and science, including quantum theory, are based on intuitions that we have).
Therefore, so long as it has not been shown that a certain intuition is mistaken, my assumption is that it is true. True, there is never certainty, and therefore it is certainly appropriate to treat intuitions—and our conclusions in general—with a degree of skepticism. As is well known, every person can be wrong, and all of humanity can also be wrong. But one should not make the postmodern mistake of identifying uncertainty with doubt. Uncertainty means that the proposition X is not certainly true (and that is true of every proposition, perhaps even including this proposition itself). But that does not mean it should not be adopted. It may be correct with 80% probability, or something like that.
Hello, Rabbi.
Thank you for the quick reply. The doctor accepted your suggestion to bring redemption closer through explanation. But the main point is still missing: could you write in a few short sentences what the answer actually is to the question whether quantum theory and the like prove that our basic intuition for perceiving reality is not always suited to reality? Is it possible to distinguish and say that our moral perception, or the basic perception that there is a Creator of the world and that we have a connection to Him, is true? Or perhaps, as I wrote, since this is our clear intuition, what difference does it make to me if in some world that does not touch us it may be mistaken—it is not important to me. I hope I phrased that correctly. I understand that your books deal with this; could you write your arguments in a few sentences?