Emotions & Reason: Is there a third faculty?

I think the following gets to the crux of the matter.

We all have emotions, we are all familiar with emotions - love, hate, disgust, passion. We also all reason logically, cause and effect, 2+2=4 and so on. Reason and emotion may be complex and inter-twined and inter-dependent, and it might be impossible to fully distinguish the two, but we all understand that we have these two faculties.

But is there a third faculty? I get the impression that believers will say yes - that spirituality is distinct from normal reason and emotion. Or there is some mysterious other sense of "intuition", or "insight" - all of which lead to God (or whatever religious belief you happen to believe in).

But how can you know this? How can you distinguish? Even if spirituality is some amazing transcendent feeling totally unlike other feelings, at the end of the day, it's a type of feeling. And if it's insight or intuition, what are these exactly? Some mysterious faculty of the brain, that can produce truths with no evidence? How could you possibly know that you aren't just imagining things? Because your "insight" tells you so? Please.

And even worse (for believers), we know that certain chemicals can easily induce exactly these kinds of transcendent feelings, that is an undisputed fact. So you might say "well, that's not real spirituality", but how could you possibly tell, if it feels exactly the same, and produces the same behaviors?

Spirituality is always described in terms of emotions - awe, fear, wonder, love, dread. Or some intellectually oriented believers might describe it in pseudo-rational terms like insight or intuition. But aren't these just other words for thoughts or emotions?

We can feel or we can think, there doesn't seem to be a third faculty. But I wouldn't mind being wrong on this one. Book recommendations, links or personal anecdotes are welcome.

[Note: Of course we have senses too - hearing, seeing, touching, tasting, smelling]. If you prefer "sense" language, I guess I'm talking about a 6th sense (or lack of). And I'm not talking about senses which exist in animals and occasionally in humans e.g. ability to sense incoming weather (presumably based on sensitivity to air pressure or humidity levels), ability to detect presence of explosives (through smell) ability to connect with animals (e.g. Temple Grandin) etc etc etc. All of these are fascinating, but none are super-natural.]

Spirituality & Orthopraxy

I recently heard a drashah on Spirituality from the head of the OU, Rabbi Tzvi Hersh Weinreb. He bought various proofs that the key to spirituality was chessed and tzedek and not sitting alone on a mountaintop, or even Shlomoh Carlebach niggunim. Also apparently it doesn't have anything to do with contemplating God. In his entire shiur I don't think he mentioned God once.

It was very nice and PC and very MO (actually it could have been Reconstructionist), but he shied away from actually defining Spirituality. An educated friend of mine defined spirituality as "the pleasure of being in God's presence", which I suppose is all very nice, but probably should be amended to "the pleasure of thinking or feeling you are in God's presence".

From an OP POV there's no getting around the fact that Spirituality is an emotion, a feel good emotion, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I think that "true" spirituality is a special kind of emotion - an emotion which is kind of wrapped up in morality, connectedness and other kinds of transcendent concepts/feelings. All good stuff, and a natural part of being human. Rabbi Weinreb also talked about how its a mitzvah to enjoy doing mitzvot, and brought various proof-texts for that too. And of course that's also a good thing.

A Rabbi of mine bemoans the fact that MO produces emotional cripples - with all their focus on rationality. I think he has a point, and it's all the more sad especially since the kind of rationality these people are promoting is totally BS rationality - as in "We're rational, we believe that when God wrote Breishis he meant it allegorically", or "We're so rational, we accept Science, as long as we can find a 12th century Rabbi to back us up" - yeah very rational.

And actually, from an epistemological POV, these MO rationalist types are actually the least coherently rational of all sects of Judaism. The Chareidim have a straightforward epistemology - they believe (for whatever reasons), that Chazal were/are infallible. Therefore everything Chazal said was right, and anything that contradicts Chazal must by definition be wrong. Of course their reasons for being convinced that Chazal were infallible are wrong, but no more wrong than any MO who believes Chazal had some specially true take on their own religion (which of course all MOs do believe). But Chareidim are at least consistent.

Contrast this with the "Rational" MO types who will argue to the death that "beliefs must be supported by evidence", and that Chareidim are ridiculous for ignoring all the evidence, yet they completely ignore all the evidence about the history of their own religion, either by dismissing it outright, or - as I have heard from more than one person - using some completely lame excuse - "I don't have the level of emunah to deal with Biblical criticism" said one Rabbi (who I otherwise basically respect), "It's not my field" said another.

So how much Spirituality (or even Mysticism) should an OPer have with respect to rationality? I think the answer is simple. As long as spirituality is an emotion (like love), it's fine and to be encouraged. But if you get carried away by your emotions and start doing stupid things (or believing stupid things), then it's time to reassess.

Who Wrote the Bible? Nobody

[From "How the Bible became a Book"]

Why are we so concerned with who wrote the Bible? That question did not become important until after the rise of Greek civilization in the fourth century B.C.E. – well after most of the books of the Bible had been written. In contrast, the importance of authorship was largely an unknown concept in the ancient Semitic world. The famous Mesopotamian Epic of Gilgamesh, the Babylonian creation myth known as The Enuma Elish, the Egyptian tale The Shipwrecked Sailor, and the Canaanite epic literary account of the battle between the gods, Baal and Mot, have no authors. They have scribes who pass along the tradition. The scribes were first of all administrators or bureaucrats; they were not authors. The Classical Hebrew language does not even have a word that means "author." The nearest term would he sofer, "scribe," who was a transmitter of tradition and text rather than an author. Authorship is a concept that derives from a predominantly written culture, whereas ancient Israelite society was largely an oral culture. Traditions and stories were passed on orally from one generation to the next. They had their authority from the community that passed on the tradition rather than from an author who wrote a text.

Chareidi Drug Dealing Rabbi!

Another day, another scandal. This time it's a British guy, a Chareidi Rabbi from Manchester, England who is accused of using and dealing in drugs. In fact it turns out that drug use is a growing problem there, even amongst the Jewish (frum?) community.

But we should be dan le'kaf zechus and not judge people till we are in their shoes. I heard it's so miserable there that if I had to live there I'd probably be snorting crack cocaine too.

The Power to Interpret our Lives

[This is a waste of a fabulous piece of prose. So I edited it. Here is what it could have been.]

We're all born late.

We're born into history that is well under way.
We're born into cultures, nations and languages that we didn't choose.
We're born with genetic predispositions that we can't control.
We're born in a universe and no-one really knows why it exists.

But, in spite of this, we have a drive to seek coherence and meaning in our lives. We have a need to tell ourselves stories that explain it all. We use these stories to supply the metaphysics of our existence, without which life seems pointless and empty.

Among all the things we can't control, we do have some control over our stories.

We do have a conscious say in selecting the narrative we will use to make sense of the world. Individual responsibility is contained in the act of selecting and constantly revising the master narrative we tell to ourselves.

The stories we select help us, in turn, to interpret the world.
They guide us to pay attention to certain things and ignore other things.
They lead us to see certain things as sacred and other things as disgusting.
They are the frameworks that shape our desires and goals.

The most important power we have is the power to select the story through which we interpret reality.

Use that power responsibly.

Amudei Shaish or related victims

I have been asked to request that anyone who has any information about molestation related to the tragic case of Motty Berger obm or related to Amudei Shaish (the popular kids band of the 70s and 80s) - apparently some kids in there might be involved - please get in touch, anonymously of course.

Please note: I'm just passing on a public service announcement. I have no intention of blogging about this or getting involved in any way (assuming there's even anything to get involved in). Nor am I making any allegations about anything.

Lubavitch: Even weirder than the Prisoner

First I watched the Prisoner, and thought that was the strangest thing I ever saw. But then I saw this.

Learning all the wrong lessons

A chosson tragically commits suicide a day after his chasunah, due to his incredible guilt and shame at being sexually molested in Yeshivah, and admitting it to his wife on their wedding night, as reported here.

So the grieving father gives a drashah about what lesson we should learn from all this. So what's the lesson? That we need to address abuse (and mental illness) in our community? That people who are dating should be honest with their wives to be?

No!

The lesson (according to the father) is that we have to have less machlokes in the community! I'm not criticizing the father, obviously he has just endured a terrible double tragedy. But still. What's wrong with the Brooklyn/Chareidi community? Unbelievable.

Holy Crap,We're all Prisoners

I was watching the AMC "remake" of the Prisoner (not bad actually) and I realized something. The show is about a guy who wakes up in a strange village, and he doesn't know what he's doing there. And he can't get out. It sounds rather far-fetched, but actually, that's the story of our lives. None of us know what we're doing here, and there is no out. And as for the people who have made it "out", we never hear from them again. Some things seem familiar, some things seem strange, but we don't really understand anything. Oh well. At least we don't have to put up with Rover.

What were your teen years like?

When I was younger, I used to enjoy watching those teen angst/relationship movies, like Breakfast Club, Ferris Beuelers Day Off, and my favorite, Can't Buy Me Love. Attending a rather frum, all male Yeshivah High School, the world of these Public School kids seemed fascinating, exciting, and entirely out of my reach.

We didn't even know any girls, much less go to senior proms and pool parties. There were no jocks or geeks (actually, I guess my entire Yeshivah were geeks). All we had was learning and studying and homework. There were no parties, no hanging out at the local diner (or even Pizza Parlor), no cruising in our convertibles and certainly no dates or girlfriends. Watching these movies was a link to another world.

On the other hand, the teens in these movies didn't seem all that happy. Relationship issues, jocks vs. geeks, the horrors of hugh school, dysfunctional families and the rest.

Funnily enough, my wife did live through that kind of life (to some extent - she frummed out later). She attended a co-ed (MO) high school, and there were lots of pool parties and all the rest. Not sure if they had a senior prom though. And, she was a dead ringer for Cindy Mancini (I've seen the photos). She says it was all kinda "stam" though (maybe she's trying to make me feel better).

So which is the reality? Did I really miss out on the best days of my life? Does it make any difference? If I regret all that time I spent learning Babah Kamah, do I lose my schar in Olam Habah? Should I make sure that my kids have a great time in high school (they can always frum out later), or should I give them the kind of repressed childhood that I had?

Emes and Emunah - Rabbi Eliyahu Fink Agrees With Me!

Rabbi Eliyahu Fink of the Pacific Jewish Center (the shul on Venice Beach) also agrees with me about the meaning of the word "Emunah" - that it means faithfulness/loyalty/faith IN, and NOT faith THAT (i.e. Christian Faith). In fact, he has an entire shiur on it (Truth and Faith – Connections 12/26/09 ).

In the shiur he contrasts and compares Emes and Emunah - Emes is truth (rational truth). Once you figure out the truth (the Emes), then you should be loyal to it (Emunah). So for example, for ancient Israelites it was obvious that the Emes was that God existed, and Moshe constantly exhorted them to have emunah - i.e. be loyal to that truth, trust in God.

Nowadays of course, we cannot be so sure what the Emes is. But that doesn't change the meaning of "Emunah".

No honey, you don't look false

An interesting discussion ensued in the comments to the previous post. If you are genuinely not feeling too enamored of your wife, is it husbandoprax (HP) to tell her "I love you" or buy her a valentine's card? Or in the other classic example, telling your wife she doesn't look fat when she clearly does.

Of course I can't speak from personal experience here, my wife is so amazing that there is never even one second where I think jeez, she's gone completely psycho. But there are people who at some point(s) in their marriage may be not quite as much in love as on their wedding night.

So what should such a husband do? Be brutally honest? Lie? Some might say that the real "truth" here is that the husband does, in general, like his wife, and wishes he could be in love more. Therefore telling a white lie here, in the hopes that it will eventually be true, is ok.

Or even if he is resigned to the fact that his love will never come back, maybe the fact that he wishes he was more in love is enough to make it true, or at least morally acceptable to say so?

The parallel to the Orthoprax (OP) is that maybe if an OP wishes TMS and the ikkarimm were true, even though he seriously doubts that they are, or even if he is convinced they are not, maybe that's enough to declare a belief of sorts?

I think there is some validity to these avenues of thought, and maybe some in the closet OrtHopraxers console themselves with these kind of kvetches - but it's not for me. I'm not interested in developing a philosophy/theology where I kvetch to show that I have "belief" so everything is OK.

On the contrary, my agenda is more radical. I intend to have a philosophy where I davkah don't have beliefs in the ikkarim, and its still OK.

Not only that, I want to insist that Modern Orthodoxy be comfortable with this. I want to tell MO that if all they are is Chareidim with modern dress and movies then that's not good enough. MO needs to be TRULY modern, but still "frum", to show the world that a non fundamentalist religion (in every sense) can still be incredibly valued, moral, ritualistic and all the rest.

My agenda is to outfrum the Modern Orthodox, yet be completely accepting of the REAL TRUTH. Or at least the TRUTH ABOUT THE REAL TRUTH, since nobody knows the REAL TRUTH.

I want to say to Torah; "Honey, in truth you do look a bit 'false', but it doesn't matter, because I love you anyways."

A Powerful Defense of Orthopraxy

I received the following via email:

I can't for the life of me know why you're so obsessed with TRUTH, as if all of life isn't filled with falsehoods used to achieve more worthwhile objectives, and as if you've uncovered some chidush most thinking people hadn't recognized but shrugged and moved on.

Husbands get wives valentine's cards when they don't feel valentinish, employees smile at nasty bosses, parents lie repeatedly to kids, Presidents tell the public the economy or war are going well to try and affect attitudes, our entire consumer society is based on manipulating desire. Certainly, doctors tell patients their medicines work when they are just placebo. In Torah, our Patriarchs lie repeatedly, and the Rabbis themselves have us tell the homely bride she's gorgeous - if that's not orthopraxy, what is?

Who cares about the level of evidence in support of the mabul or maamad har Sinai? Lies can be wonderful tools (you should see the movie "The Invention of Lying"), and Truth is just one value to juggle with others; used incorrectly Truth destroys the placebo affect and the patient dies.

And a clarification in the comments:

XGH, my email was not intended in support for Orthopraxy but rather it's an observation that the label only make sense for those hung up on evidence in all facets of their life. Lack of compelling evidence (re God, revealed Torah, etc.) is largely irrelevant to me; I'd adopt observant behavior regardless in order to achieve the major moral and social benefits that I obtain from Jewish living - these benefits trump any of my uncertainties, and even my certainties.

Some other saintly posters here notwithstanding (who never, ever, ever manipulate their feelings to obtain a desired outcome), in life, most good Jews (like most good humans) are dishonest at times. And if you saw into their souls, most of those Jews might be unsure about the ikarim, but they carry on just the same. If they are honest about their utilitarian dishonesty, those Jews do not need a special label (OP or whatever) to be observant, any more than I need the label "husbandprax" if I say "I'm sorry" to my lovely wife even when I don't mean it. "Husband" will do just fine... you are all so hung up on this label stuff.

Nach Yomi

Here is another book I am reading: The Nach Yomi Companion by Rabbi Jack Abramowitz. It's a summary review of Nach, chapter by chapter. It's quite readable, certainly easier than reading through Nach. Of course he skips a lot of details, but if you want to do a quick read to remember where everything is (or are approaching Nach for the first time), I think it could be quite useful. I haven't learnt much Nach since high school, so reading it was a trip down memory lane for me.

A few nitpicks - it seems to be aimed at high school kids, with some rather silly jokes and comments. Plus it's totally Artscrollish - not Modern at all, in any way. All inconsistencies or other issues are dealt with in a kiruv manner. All in all though, I'm going to recommend it. I'm not aware of anything else like it, but if you are, please let me know.

In related news, the OU's 2 year Nach Yomi Cycle starts thisThursday - seems like a great idea. Nothing is clearer evidence of the evolution of Judaism than Tenach is. Plus its full of impossible happenings and bad ass morality.

I'm toying with the idea of going through Nach and analyzing each book - for example - which books mention Torah, or Har Sinai? Which books mention Halachah? What are the nasty stories? That kind of thing. Not to debunk or debase it, but just to understand what's going on. Nach is our sacred history, some books perhaps even more so than the Torah.

David Gelernter's new book: Judaism a Way of Being

Professor David Gelernter's new book "Judaism: A Way of Being" comes with breathless recommendations, and sounds like an original and creative take on Judaism. I eagerly ordered it on Amazon as soon as I heard about it.

The only problem is I hated it.

He sounds like one of these celebrity BTs - Laura Schlesinger or David Klinghoffer - incredibly sure of himself but really rather clueless about Judaism in general and Orthodoxy in particular. I read about a third of it and put it down in disgust. The final straw was when he claimed that "finding fulfillment in a worldly career is ridiculous" and Judaism tells you to not teach your children to aspire to a brilliant career.

Yuch. I think the good professor should stick to Computer Science.

The Camera with an interchangeable Camera

Sweet!

What exactly is wrong with the Documentary Hypothesis Part II

Last week we discussed what is wrong with the DH from an OJ perspective. This week let's discuss what's wrong with the DH in general, or at least what people say is typically wrong with it. I can think of 11 things.

1. It's unprecedented

There's very few, if any, parallels to this kind of cut and paste approach to religious texts.

2. It was/is driven by antisemitism/anti-Zionism

Wellhausen and company were not objective academics, rather they were trying to show that Judaism was all wrong. In contemporary times the motivation is more anti-Zionism, whereby the minimalists (e.g. Tommy Thompson) want to show that ancient Israelite history is all a myth.

3. What was the redactor thinking?

Why would the redactor do such a crude job in some places, but such a fine job in others? For example, there are obvious inconsistencies and contradictions, clear doublets in some places yet careful interweaving (e.g. Noach) in others. This just doesn't make sense.

4. No trace of source texts

For such a significant work, you would expect there to be some trace of source texts somewhere. But nothing has ever been found of anything remotely similar to a J,E,P or D.

5. No agreement in the field

While most Bible Scholars agree that the Bible is a composite text, there is zero agreement on the details. There are wide ranging arguments on who wrote it, when it was written, what the divisions in the text are and what the motives were. This level of disagreement shows how subjective all this scholarship really is, and how little credibility it should have.

6. Scholars don't know the Meforshim

These so called "Biblical Scholars" can mostly not even read Hebrew, never mind learn any of the meforshim. If they could learn, they would see that the Meforshim (and Chazal) have already addressed most of the questions they raise.

7. Scholars have a pre-conceived bias

Biblical Scholars have a pre-conceived bias that God doesn't exist. Therefore, they do not even investigate whether God could have written the Torah. Were they to believe in God, they would see that a Divine Author is actually more likely than multiple human authors.

8. We don't know how God writes

Similar to number 7, the academics go wrong because they are analyzing the text from a human perspective. However since we know God wrote the text, none of this analysis is valid, since who can know God's intentions. It is entirely invalid to analyze Divine Text using human methods of analysis (though figuring out peshat and making drashos is ok).

9. It is driven by dogma and bias

The field of Biblical Scholarship in general is full of dogma. Anyone who advances a theory of single authorship is ridiculed and rejected. There is just no objective discussion, and no way for non biased Biblical Scholars to have their voices heard.

10. It's already been/being disproven

Postmodernism, literary theory, Kenneth Kitchen and Umberto Cassutto have all disproven the DH and Biblical Criticism. In fact literary experts and academics deride Biblical Scholars as being completely out of touch with the latest advances in literary analysis.

11. Chazal's Analysis shows the DH is impossible

Bible Scholars don't know Gemarah. If they did, they would see that the tremendous amount of Talmudic analysis on individual words and letters in the Torah is so amazing that it can't all be by chance. Chazal even figured out rules (e.g. Clal or Prat) to determine halachos from the way the text is constructed, or from contradictions in the text. And this all works out amazingly well. If it was all just random we wouldn't have been able to dasrhen out a consistent halachic corpus, and had Rishonim and Acharonim construct additional coherent layers of analysis on top of that.

12. There's nothing wrong with it per-se, however the history of Judaism shows it can't be true

While the DH on its own and in a vacuum might be a reasonable theory, when considered together with the history of the Jewish people (and the world in general) you clearly see that the Bible is Divine. It therefore must be that the reason God wrote in all the contradictions etc is to teach us lesons, just like Chazal say.

Kol Hamevaser on Orthopraxy

The latest edition of Kol Hamevasser, the YU newletter, has an extensive article on Orthopraxy. The article is written by one Eli Putterman, a Shanah Alef student at Yeshivat Har Etzion, which I guess makes him about 19 years old? Not a very experienced age, but the article is reasonably mature, if wrong in some places.

Overall, he takes a fairly tolerant view to the Orthopraxers, and recognizes that by and large they are coming from a legitimate place, and are not just spewing heresies to destroy OJ, and that they should get respect. He even seemingly refers to me at one point, writing that "the development of the blogosphere has brought with it the emergence of several anonymous Orthoprax bloggers, some of whom became Orthoprax during their blogging career due to Internet discussions."

He has a discussion of whether Orthopraxers are mumarim or tinokot shenishbeuh. Personally I think that none of these categories fit these days, since the epistemilogical environment is just too different from anything that has gone before. You can hardly call the seroious Orthopraxer a "mumar leteavon" (out of desires), unless you say his desire for the truth has led him astray. And "mumar lehachis"(our of spite) doesn't seem right either. And certainly the average Orthopraxer is not a tinok shenishbah, on the contrary, the Orthopraxers tend to be far more knowledgeable than the average MO Jew.

Ultimately, none of these categories readily apply to the Orthopraxer, and I tend to agree with the statement that Putterman attributes to Rabbi Yehudah Amital, that since nobody can really be sure of anything anymore, nobody ever attains the category of kofer (which requires absolute conviction in the falsity of the Torah). Putterman claims this wouldn't apply to Kugel, because Kugel makes "extremely confident claims with regard to the authorship of the Pentateuch", but Putterman is missing the point. Confidence doesn't equal absolute certainty, and I'm sure Kugel would agree. Whether or not Kugel appears confident is neither here nor there, the halachic category of kofer requires kefirah, and kefirah is defined absolute rejection. A similar pesak was given to me by a senior member of the Bet Din of America, now at RIETS.

The money quote from the article is this one:

"To combat Orthopraxy on the communal plane, the only possible measure true to our ideology is for Modern Orthodoxy to educate its members about contemporary challenges to Orthodox beliefs and the Modern Orthodox response to those problems."

While this is true enough, Putterman fails to acknowledge that the reason many people from MO turn to Orthopraxy in the first place is because they have analyzed in exceedingly great depth the "Modern Orthodox response to those problems" and found them to be severely lacking.

And I certainly haven't see many new responses being created. Gil and co. are trying valiently, but their piecemeal approach to answering the DH isn't particularly convincing overall, especially since I know some world class (frum) Bible scholars who can run circles around him. As for his series on "religious epistemology" (or whatever it should be called), I find it entirely unconvincing, often nonsensical and mostly Christian. I'm not aware of anyone else trying either, except in a more general sense (e.g. some of the books whcih were recently published in response to Dawkins, Hitchens and co.)

Somewhat naively (though I also think somewhat undearingly), Putterman writes in the notes section that :

"Another possibility, based on a suggestion to me by R. Schiller, is to educate for a faith grounded less in rational arguments, such as that preached by Breslov Hasidut. As a rationalist, I cannot advocate this."

Sweet (and also in direct contradiction to the YU Rosh Yeshivah I wrote about yesterday). Maybe as Putterman ages perhaps his rationalist tendencies might abate somewhat.

I think that the solution for MO is to teach values and practices as having worth, despite the lack of validity of their fundamental truth claims. We keep shabbat because shabbat is awesome (and more reasons), not because we believe that Chazal got a communique at Har Sinai in 1200 BCE. Plus, if you want to add a dash or a dose of Divine Inspiration, that's fine too.

And, maybe Divine Inspiration Theory is actually the best way to go for MO in general. It gets rid of all the questions very simply. True, you need to kvetch a bit in Chazal, but it's no worse than all the other kvetching that goes on.

YU Rosh Yeshivah agrees with me, dings Hirhurim and Slifkin!!!

I went to a shiur recently given by a well respected YU Rosh Yeshivah. I almost fell off my chair when the Rosh Yeshivah started saying the EXACT same things that I have been arguing with Gil about for months. Has he been reading my blog?!

His speech was about belief in God. He started out by saying that "emunah" in Judaism is not at all "Faith" that a certain proposition is true. That kind of "Faith" is a Christian (or possibly Islamic) concept that only entered Judaism with R Saadye Gaon and the Rambam. Classic Jewish Emunah is "Faith IN" i.e. trust in someone. For example, when the Torah says: "Vayaamenu baHashem uveMoshe avdo (they believed in God and Moses His servant), it couldn't possibly mean that they believed Moses existed, he was standing right there. Rather it means trust in., exactly as I argued on Gil's blog a couple of weeks ago. Err, I mean a friend of mine argued.

Of course this is not my original idea, I read it in Louis Jacobs's book "Faith", and someone else told me it can also be found in the writings of Martin Buber. The Torah doesn't give any proofs for God, on the contrary it assumes His existence as poshut. There was never any sense of "Faith" in the Torah, Tenach or Chazal.

The Rosh Yeshivah continued "I want to say unequivocally that all the so called "proofs" for God don't work at all, they have all been disproved by Hume and Kant. " He said that the whole avenue of trying to prove God's existence was a huge mistake, and quoted from the Rav. The Rav writes that these proofs were an attempt to put feelings and experience into abstract logic, for example, the belief in God which arises from a fascination of the Cosmos turned into the Cosmological proof, and that the whole thing was nonsense.

He said that the Jewish way is to see God's hand in History and Nature (Science). Interestingly, he didn't say through Miracles or Mattan Torah (perhaps he meant that by history, but perhaps not). He said God belief was an entirely experiential non rational thing. This is exactly what I have been arguing with Gil about for months, so it was nice to be vindicated, by a Rosh Yeshivah from YU no less. He didn't mention Hirhurim by name, but afterwards I told him about my debates with Gil and he reiterated that epistemic "Faith" is a Christian concept.

In the second half of the speech he spoke about Science and Torah. He said that it's ridiculous to try and reconcile Science and Torah, and that the Torah is not a scientific account of creation. He said that he respectfully disagrees with people like Rabbi Slifkin on this. However it was clear to me that he was misinformed about Slifkin, and was conflating him with Schroeder, since Slifkin's approach is not to try and reconcile (e.g. day means a billion years) but rather to say the Torah is just a spiritual account. So I corrected him on that point and he was pleased.

Of course his approach has all the usual problems, and when I asked him at what point does the Torah get factual he didn't have such a good answer, and claimed that he had no reason to believe Shemos wasn't factual, but I let it slide, because I was so happy with his position on faith.

So, in summary, Ha!

What exactly is wrong with the Documentary Hypothesis?

There seems to be a very strong resistance to the Documentary Hypothesis (DH), even within some of the more liberal elements of Orthodoxy. For example, Rabbi Gil Student writes (in reference to an Orthodox Rabbi who is OK with the DH:

"That's the kind of response that makes me regret that there is no RW Conservative movement for people like that to go to so we don't have Orthodox rabbis who say things like that. Maybe that's a plus of the Maharat phenomenon. There will be a new movement and Modern Orthodoxy can have the courage to be not only Modern but also Orthodox."

Wow, Rabbi Student would push out DH accepting Orthodox Rabbis into Conservativsm, rather than have such people defile the ranks of the Orthodox.

So what exactly is wrong with the DH (as compared to Torah Min Hashomayim-TMS)? Let's analyze.

1. Date

The DH claims that the Torah was redacted sometime between 800 and 400BC. Some minimalist positions date it even later, at around 200BC. This does not accord with Jewish Tradition, which dates it to approximately 1200BC. Obviously it's not just a matter of dating, but if the Torah was only redacted in 500BC, the what were the Jewish people following before that? Was there an E and J Torah? Was there even a common tradition of Sinai? The late dating throws traditional Biblical History into turmoil. Then again, there's not much mention of Sinai or Torah in Shoftim.

2. Human Authorship

The DH claims that the Torah was written by people. True, TMS also says that the Torah was ultimately written down by people (i.e. Moshe), but TMS holds that God directly dictated every word to Moshe, and Moshe had no say at all in the wording. According to the DH, people wrote it and could choose the wording. Now, you could certainly argue that even according to the DH the people who wrote it did so under Divine Inspiration, but it seems harder to believe that through all the years of editing, the wording turned out to be exactly what God wanted it to be. Then again, God can do anything, so why not?

3. Political Motivations

The DH claims that much of the conflicting accounts of the narratives (and laws) is due to the political motivations of various competing groups of Priests and others. TMS will claim that every single story reflects the Divine Will. Again, it is possible to say that while it might appear that the different stories reflect different groups, God planned it so that ultimately the Torah contained the 'right' message.

4. Chazal

Although the Torah itself is rather vague on the question of its own authorship, Chazal were certainly of the opinion that all (or almost all) of it was written by Moshe. Although Chazal can be wrong on matters of Science, and even history (the missing 150 years for example), most OJs will balk at the thought that Chazal could be wrong on such a fundamental theological question.

5. Mesorah

Clearly, the notion of TMS has been mainstream in Judaism for at least 2,000 years. Even the various heretical groups (e.g. the Kaarites) held of TMS, they only argued on Torah ShebaalPeh. If such a mainstream part of the Mesorah is wrong, what else could be wrong too?

6. Ikkarim

The Rambam lists belief in TMS as one of the fundamental ikkarim. Even though there has been much debate over the ikkarim, many people regard them as the de facto definition of Orthodox Judaism. And even though the Rambams actual formulation of this ikkar is clearly untrue (that every single word is the original Torah), it is still held as an ikkar.

7. Sociological

Most Orthodox people seem to have a rather tenuous connection to Halachah. They will only keep it if they are convinced that every word of the Torah came directly from God. If the Torah turns out to be filtered through the hands of man, they will see no value in it, and will drop all practice, and consequently Judaism will die out. Of course actual Halachah comes from Torah ShebaalPeh and not Torah Shebichtav, and it would in theory be possible to believe that TSBP came from Sinai in 1200BC, whereas TBK came much later.

8. Halachah

The DH claims that the differing versions of halachos are due to different authorship. However Chazal learned many halachot from such differences. If these differences were not intentional, then it seems that Chazal's drashos are wrong. However it could still be argued that the ultimate text of the Torah was 'Divinely Ordained'. In addition, it could be claimed that Chazal were not really learning the halachah from the text, rather they had the established halachah and were just trying to show a source in the text.

Orthodox Responses to the DH

There have been a number of Orthodox responses to the DH. Some of these responses have co-opted (and in some cases perverted) non Orthodox theories.

1. Refutation (Hertz, Cassutto etc)

These scholars basically refuted the DH and denied that it was true. Note that Cassutto was no believer in traditional TMS either.

2. Breuer

Rav Mordechai Breuer maintained that most of the problems identified by the DH were real, however his response is to show that these differences are there to teach you something.

3. The New School

The new school (Etshalom, Student etc) also take the quesitons of the DH seriously, but they are less extreme than Breuer. In some cases they may take a Breuerish approach, but in other cases they may take a Cassutto approach. They also take some of the scholarship of the literary approach to the Bible (e.g. Robert Alter). This can be somewhat disingenuous, since the literary approach to the Bible does not deny that the Bible developed from multiple source documents. Rather the literary approach has a different focus - rather than dissecting the text to determine its constituent parts, this approach tries to explain what meaning the redacted version is meant to convey.

4. Halivni

Rabbi Halivni's theory is that there was an original pure Torah, however due to the various troubles, sins and exiles, this was largely lost, and had to be reconstructed by Ezra. Although this is a very possible theory, there is no evidence or basis for it, except for a Gemarah which says that "had Moshe not written the Torah, Ezra could have".

5. Kugel/Jacobs

Professor Kugel agrees with the DH, but maintains that all the individual texts were Divinely Inspired. He has not fully discussed all the details of this approach, but apparently is working on a book which will do so. This approach is basically the approach of the Conservative movement in the US, and the Masorati (Louis Jacobs) movement in the UK.

6. Moses as the Redactor (Aishdas)

This simplistic approach claims that Moses was the Redactor, and that God commanded Moses to integrate versions of pre-existing "Megillos" that the Bnai Yisrael had in their possession. This doesn't really fit with the DH, but there is a medrash which talks about the Bnai Yisrael having the Breishis Scrolls in their possession.

7. Chareidi

Ignore the entire issue. It simply doesn't exist.

So what do I make of all this? If there was a legitimate debate amongst legitimate scholars as to single vs. multiple authorship, then I would take the question seriously. However, since all experts agree on late, multiple authorship, and the only believers in early, single authorship are religious believers or people who are a-priori motivated by religious belief to hold of early single authorship, the argument seems to be simply one of bias, or faith versus reason, i.e. not a real argument at all.

Therefore the only real question is how best can Orthodoxy adapt to what clearly looks like the truth, as best as we can estimate it.

The beginning of the end for Israel?

What I have been predicting for years has finally hit the headlines:

"Palestinian state may have to be abandoned - Erekat"

All those people who resisted a two-state solution are fools. Because once the two-state solution is off the table - the only remaining option is a one state solution. And that one state will have more Arabs than Jews, which will eventually change the nature of the State, because no modern country could possibly practice any kind of apartheid and be accepted in the international community. But maybe everyone will get along, and a spririt of peaceful cooperation will create the new State of Israel-Palestine? Could be.

Micha Berger on why people go OTD

Micha Berger writes on Areivim that people only go OTD for emtional biased reasons, and offers the following example:

I have an efriend who was convinced of Document Hypothesis as a teen, and thus by the time I "knew" him he became Conervative. If he really found no Orthodox solution to his question but was otherwise happy with Orthodoxy, would he have thrown it all away, or embraced something more like Halivni-Weiss's theory? (Which claims: The Torah was given at Sinai, reduced to scraps by galus bavel, reconstructed by Anshei Keneses haGedolah. The result didn't fit the known halakhah, so TSBP was invented to retain practice.) It's a belief system that would justify following Orthodox pesaq while still embracing his belief in DH. But no, he wanted to jetison more than what he was questioning, because there were other things that made him unhappy being Orthodox.

He also claims that I went OTD for emotional, personal reasons.

Firstly Reb Micha, I don't think you should be talking about me (Harry Maryles - you too).

Secondly, you are completely wrong. The reason you think I went OTD is not at all the reason. Seriously, NOT. Rather, it's just as Harry said, I got into debates with skeptics and eventually had to concede that they were right. I wasn't unhappy at all with OJ, on the contrary I was happy as can be, as you can see from my early postings.

Micha also writes:

"I think that negi'os come first. Always."

Micah, in this case you are actually...right! The real truth of the matter is that I was "nogeah" (biased), and still am. EXTREMELY BIASED in fact.

I am totally and utterly biased towards wanting to be a part of OJ, and wanting OJ to be true. No question about it. I admit it 100%. This is why it took the skeptics several years to shake me, even though they are obviously correct.

Why am I so biased?

For selfish, personal reasons. My wife is OJ, my family is OJ, my kids are OJ, my whole life is OJ. Every memory is tied to being OJ. The happiest years of my life were spent in Yeshivah in Israel (Unsdorf no less, learning by Reb Moshe Shapiro!). I was never for one second emotionally or physically abused by the OJ system. On the contrary, I was the star pupil in my high school and even won the prize for best talmid. I did well at Yeshiva. I even took an extra year to learn in Beis Medrash before starting work.

I don't live in a repressive OJ community - quite the contrary, I live in hefker LWMO land where anything goes, in fact I sometimes wish the people around me were a little bit frummer (go on - blame them why don't you).

The reason I don't just "go with Halivni" (or similar) is that I tried all that, but ultimately it fails to convince. Could Halivni be right? Sure, but where's the evidence? It's just a theory.

What really surprises me is how supposedly intelligent people like Micha (or Harry for that matter) find it impossible to accept that their religion might actually be false. Is this so incomprehensible to you guys? After all, every other fundamentalist religion is false, why not yours? Couldn't possibly be? And anyone who comes to that conclusion must be biased?! You guys are a riot!

You think it's possible that maybe, just maybe, you guys are a teensy weensy tiny weeny bit biased? Just a teeny tiny leetle bit of wafer thin bias in there somewhere? Could the merest hint of the possibility of bias possibly have flit across your consciousness perhaps on some occasion? Do ya think? Isn't it at least in the vicinity of the realm of possibility?

No? I guess not.

Pragmatism & Knowledge

UPDATE: Look's like I have been duped by an Intellifundie! My knowledgeable and helpful commentators are saying that rejewvenators explanation of Pragmatism is wrong. And mea culpa on me for not fully researching it either. Damn intellifundies.

Are there other ways of gaining knowledge besides experimentation, evidence and logical reasoning? Is there any other way of defining knowledge other than justified true belief? I don't think so, but last week rejewvenator brought up the philosophy of pragmatism. You can read all about it on Wikipedia and elsewhere, but basically one of the tenets of pragmatism (at least according to some versions) is that truth is defined primarily as useful beliefs (rather than you know, true beliefs). Personally I think this is a bunch of bs, and is what happens when people want desperately to justify their not so true beliefs. But there's no denying that influential philosophers have proposed this.


But what about my reliance on "experts" and "consensus"? Do I have to agree with Pragmatism? Of course not! For a few reasons. Firstly, I don't think "experts" can even be applied to philosophy. Most of philosophy (except for certain technical areas of logic which are anyways breaking away from philosophy) is purely subjective personal opinion. Hard to be an expert in that!


Secondly, even though the majority view in subjective opinion definitely counts for a lot (as in morality), in Philosophy there is no consensus whatsoever. There are hundreds, even thousands of competing philosophies. In fact, philosophy is very similar to religion in this regard. You can hold of your philosophy and I can hold of mine. We can certainly debate, and debate may be useful. But there is no consensus of expert opinion.


So I stand by my original post - Knowledge is justified true belief. If it's not true, it aint knowledge. But we can debate what exactly is "justified". Also, I'm still waiting for someone to give me an example of (true) knowledge which wasn't formed through experience, experimentation, evidence or logical thought.

Interesting

Jewish Terrorist is oleh from the US

So the terrorist who stands accused of multiple attacks (and there's some speculation that he was also involved or knowledgeable about the major attack on the "Toevah Center") is from a Chareidi background - his family live in Betar Illit. Possibly he's Chareidi too, though when it comes to extremist beliefs, the West Bank based Dati Leumi chevrah are often worse than the Charedim. Also, he's an oleh from the US. Why am I not suprised?

Orthoprax/Heterodox Yeshivah too frum to use Artscroll

Here's one in the eye for all those skeptics who keep insisting that OP exists just in my imagination - an Orthoprax Yeshivah. They use a traditional siddur, but don't encourage the use of Artscroll Gemarahs as they want their students to become experts in Aramaic. They even have Gedolim: "“Our gedolim [recognized authorities] are the rabbis of the Talmud and the Mishna.” Actually, I take issue with this last point - why venerate Chazal over Rishonim & Acharonim (or even contemporary Rabbanim) ? Seems that these OPers are believers in Yeridas Hadoros!

So who are the yeshivah bochrim (and bachurot) in this Yeshivah? Not surprisingly, it's a mix of MO people moving left, and Conservative people moving right. Skeptics might take this as 'proof' that you don't find 2nd generation OPers, but I think it's early days yet. We have to see where the children of these people end up. Also, even if the majority of the OP movement remain transplants from other movements, whats wrong with that? It works for me.

Siddur Wars II: The Artscroll Strikes Back

So the RCA is working with the evil empire Artscroll to create a new RCA Siddur, this time much more modern. Apparently this one will have even more women's stuff in than the Koren. Apparently, a well known Modern Orthodox Rabbi approached the Koren people with his ideas for 'women's stuff', but it was too radical for them, however RCA/Artscroll agreed. Doesn't sound very likely, I know, but my source tells me it's the truth.

Meanwhile, back on Tatouine in my MO shul, they have converted to the Koren. But I don't like it. There's virtually no commentary, and the paper is too brittle and yellow. Yuch. I tried using the Sim Shalom this week but my Rabbi wasn't too happy.

Although I was initially against the RCA/Artscroll, I have since changed my mind. It's just not possible to beat Artscroll, they have too many titles and too much going on. Instead, we should be happy that Artscroll is apparently ok with publishing MO style sefarim. I'm going to have to reject Koren/Sacks and go with Artscroll.

As for all the claims about how Koren is "modern" while Artsrcoll is un-modern and dogmatic, I will just quote from one of my commenters:

Proponents of the Koren-Sacks Siddur taking Artscroll to task for being "un-modern" and "dogmatic" is the equivalent of the author of the Harry Potter series condemning the creators of 'Superman' for being non-factual.

The Siddur text is inherently non modern. As Sacks points out in his introduction, thr Siddur is THE book of Jewish Faith (not the Bible or the Talmud). You can't get away from it. Even the Sim Shalom, which tries to modernize by taking out our wish for Korbanos in Shabbos Musaf, still ends up praying for all sorts of mythological things. You would have to go Reconstructionist before you could get a "modern" Siddur, and at that point you might as well not bother.

I don't see that Sacks/Koren does anything at all for me. So they have Modeh Ani with female nikud - BFD. The Siddur is the Siddur. 90% of it is ridiculous to modern ears, but it's part of the tradition. If you don't like tradition, then you probably shouldn't bother davening. At least not from a siddur.