Question

Hello Rabbi, sorry in advance for the length, but since you wrote books on such charged topics, and these are matters with implications for the present and for generations, it seems to me proper to broaden the discussion in order to clarify issues of this kind that stand at the height of the world.
 
A few points that, in my view, could lessen people’s resistance to what is written in the trilogy, and in general to your other remarks as well—and all this on the assumption that you would agree to endorse what I say.
 
The meaning of prayer even in our generation. Prayer is service of the heart, and as its name implies, it brings the heart into the service of God. Even a rational person does not need to pay the price of giving up religious experiences. Religious experiences are not necessarily illusions.
 
(Even if feelings of love and awe are not indispensable, still, someone who does not feel love and awe in his heart has a deficiency—similar to a person who puts on the hand tefillin but does not put on the head tefillin. True, he has performed a commandment, but he is missing another commandment. There is no need to subordinate the truth to our spiritual state. The truth is that love and awe are required, and the truth is that we still have not merited them.)
 
The illusion can arise only if I prayed and what I wanted happened, and I suppose that it happened as a result of my prayer. In that case one can say that perhaps I am deluding myself.
 
But if I felt longing and yearning to receive help with a certain matter, what illusion is there here? I feel a feeling, and I decide where to direct it (prayer in the subject). By the way: what Samuel David Luzzatto wrote—that only a prophet can pray—that is prayer in the object. That is, God turns to the prophet—direct light—and the prophet prays according to what God revealed to him—reflected light.
 
Prayer is not a solution to problems; rather, problems create an opportunity to serve God with the heart. The Holy One, blessed be He, need not depart from the laws of physics in order to answer prayer. The laws of physics apply in the material realm; the Holy One, blessed be He, has whole realms that physics does not touch—the inner realms. The translation of “who gives you power to get wealth” is “who gives you advice for becoming wealthy in possessions.”
 
God gives the physician permission to heal. Prayer can certainly cause the physician to receive the right idea and the right advice, and help the physician make the right decision.
 
When I prayed for a sick person and he recovered—did my prayer cause it? I do not know, and it also does not matter, because prayer was not meant to solve problems, as stated above; rather, the problems brought me to serve God with the heart. What matters is that at least such a possibility exists, that prayer may help; otherwise we would completely lose the motivation. (Professor Benjamin Fine relates that when he was a child, he asked his father: Is there a God? His father answered him: Maybe. His father’s answer was enough to make him begin turning to the Holy One, blessed be He.)
 
Bottom line: the fact that I feel a strong desire that God help—this is true! The fact that everything stems from the power of the Holy One, blessed be He (“who gives you power to get wealth”)—this is true! Is there cause and effect here? Maybe yes and maybe no, but it does not matter. In any case one must ask, and in any case one must give thanks (an opportunity to give thanks, as written in the trilogy. But even more than what is written in the trilogy, it really is the Holy One, blessed be He! For He enables things to happen; He grants existence to all reality. Just as the sun causes things to be visible at every given moment, so the Holy One, blessed be He, causes things to exist at every given moment. I do not think Nachmanides would claim that someone who thinks this has no share in the Torah of Moses.)
 
“Unless God watches over a city, the watchman stays awake in vain.” It can be mistakenly understood to mean that no watchman is needed, but the opposite is true: a watchman is needed, for if God watches, then the watchman does not stay awake in vain; and if the watchman does not stay awake, then certainly God will not watch.
 
How does God watch? He gives the watchman the right advice. He intervenes in the external world through the watchman’s inner realm. I do not mean that the Holy One, blessed be He, is sitting somewhere and planting thoughts into the watchman, the doctor, and so on. Rather, there is a spiritual nature that for now is hidden from the eyes of science. If there is a spiritual blockage, the light of God does not flow. If there is no spiritual blockage, the light of God flows, like rays of sunlight, which enter immediately when an opening is made. (Of course, in the period of prophecy there is special attention—not only מצד the created being who receives, but also מצד the Creator who bestows.)
 
How do we know the above? The sages of Kabbalah revealed it to us. How do they know? Kabbalah does not derive from logic. True, one can find logical explanations, but logic is not the source of these things—encounter is. Prophecy may indeed have ceased in a loud voice—in public—but prophecy in a whisper has never ceased, in the inwardness of the hearts of individuals whom the Jewish people had over the course of the generations. They certainly have the possibility of knowing things that we are not able to know, at least for now. Not because this contradicts reason, or because it is beyond reason, but because at present it is hidden from our spiritual sight. Perhaps one can hit upon the truth by reasoning, but we have no way of knowing whether we have indeed hit upon the truth. Not so those individuals: they did not speak from speculation, but from revelation, as the author of Sulam explains well in his article “The Essence of the Wisdom of Kabbalah” in his book The Giving of the Torah and elsewhere. It is also worth seeing what he writes about the difference between philosophy and Kabbalah.
 
Regarding world history: “The heart of kings and ministers is in the hand of God.” God brings about history by allowing human beings to act according to what they choose, but if God identifies developments that would disrupt the direction in which He is aiming, He will intervene, and without violating the laws of physics. True, He will intervene in human choices as needed, as above.
 
History teaches us only what we are capable of understanding from it, each person according to the inclinations of his heart, his education, his environment, and so on (learning in the subject): “Her husband is known in the gates”—to each and every person according to what he estimates in his heart. In any case, even if no clear lesson can be learned from history, that does not lessen the relevance of God’s intervention (though less than once, because we have already matured, as mentioned in the trilogy). He intervenes, when needed, not so that we will learn, but in order to lead things where He wishes.
 
Based on this, one can say that the dispersion, the exile, and the return here are an actual realization of the words of prophecy. True, does that mean one must be Zionist? Does that mean one must be Haredi? No conclusion can be drawn from this, but one certainly can and should see the hand of God behind the scenes.
 
I will summarize the points I wanted to emphasize in my remarks:
A. In places where we are not speaking about Jewish law based on mistaken scientific knowledge, but about spiritual principles, it is proper and right to attribute to our predecessors a source of knowledge to which we have not yet been exposed—especially since that is what they themselves claim. (I too claim that there is no obligation to think this way, but it is certainly proper and right to think this way, and in my view it is also worth emphasizing it. Otherwise the whole wisdom of Kabbalah becomes a kind of joke and mockery, a sort of philosophy dressed up in strange garments meant only to create an esoteric atmosphere.)
 
B. A religious experience that usually accompanies prayer is not an illusion (prayer in the subject and not prayer in the object). Therefore it is proper and right to strive to attain religious experience as part of religious commitment based on tradition and reason.
 
C. Even in our generation, in which policy has apparently changed, there is still a possibility that the Holy One, blessed be He, will intervene—but from within the inner life of human souls, and thereby without violating the laws of nature. On the contrary, when we see entire developments that accord with the general outlines of the words of prophecy, should we not take that too as a way to see the hand of God?! It seems to me like a missed opportunity resulting from excessive skepticism that is not even called for.
 
There is more elaboration in my heart, but for now I will make do with this. I would be glad to know, in broad terms, what you think of the above.