Bronze Age Mythology and the Search for Truth.

Arnie Eisen, Chancellor of JTS, has an article in (on? at?) The Huffington Post (which has a pretty interesting religion section actually). He waxes on about Har Sinai, I assume in a mythological way, though many of the commenters there seem to think he's a fundie and means it literally. But one comment caught my eye - that Bronze age mythology just isn't going to cut it nowadays. (To be precise, more like Late Bronze Age).

And when you think about it (or at least when I think about it), I have to agree. Eisen (and other LWMO and many Conservative types) seem to have no choice but to re-interpret the legends / myths of Judaism, to stay within the tradition. To be sure they don't take it literally, but the very fact that they are forced to have to re-use these old legends produces two significant problems. 1) Until relatively recently it seems very likely that the purveyors of these legends actually believed they were true, so it's not very authentic, and 2) it just seems incredibly contrived and fake.

Then you have the MO, who hold the bizarre position that all these myths are indeed myths, but yet they were written by God, because that's what people believed back then, and so God just had to go with the flow. Because of course, if God had told people that the world was millions of years old, they wouldn't have believed God. Or maybe their brains would have exploded, or something like that. Or if they had been told the world was round, they would have been afraid to stand up. For fear of falling over. So God had to write non true things in the Torah. Seriously, that's what these people hold.

But wait! There's more.

The intellifundies are fond of saying 'The Torah isn't a science book. It's only trying to teach you spiritual truths". Firstly, this is patently untrue, the first half of Breishis is full of etiological stories. And secondly, even if it was true, that's still not a good reason for the Torah to contain untrue stories. The again, you can't question God.

But it gets worse. Because if you follow this logically, you end up with Chazal believing the stories literally, though now we know they were myths, so it turns out that Chazal didn't even know Torah. But that's not a problem say the intellifundies, Chazal did know Torah, because Torah (back then) was mean to be understood literally, so therefore it turns out Chazal DID know peshat in Torah as they were supposed to! Amazing! It's only later that the peshat changed.

But when did the true peshat in Torah change? I guess about the same time it became obvious that none of it was true. At which point some Gedolim (e.g. Rav Kook) turned out to be real Gedolim, but the rest of them turned out to be idiots. Or maybe not idiots, but rather super smart Talmedei Chachomim, just that they don't know basic peshat in Torah.

But that's not a problem either see, because it's perfectly OK that all the world's Gedolim don't know peshat in Torah (and are also not so nice people). I mean it's a shame, but that's all.

And it's OK that Chazal knew nothing much about Science, or History, and it's OK that most of the stories in the Torah are not in fact true, (though let's not talk about Shemos or even Noach too much), and all this is not a problem. Not even when discussing life and death questions like brain death, because of course we all know that Chazal represent the will of God. Because errm, well just because. Or maybe because if they didn't, then OJ is total BS. And OJ can't be total BS because of the amazing history of the Jewish people. Or maybe OJ could be total BS, but we likes it anyway. Or maybe Chazal don't represent the will of God, we just pretend they do because that's what Orthodoxy is? Could be.

And anyway, we're helping otherwise religious people accept science and to some extent modern morality, so that must be a good thing, right? After all, we wouldn't want people to wake up to the fact that maybe their religion isn't true. That would be baaaaaaaad. I mean, just look at the Reform Jews! Actually, statistically speaking, religious fundies do indeed live happier lives. So in reality we're helping people have happier lives! Unless it makes them happy to believe in the Gedolim, in which case we're against that, because they don't hold of science.

So the bottom line is this (I think, H for Heteredox can you confirm). Of course it's all BS, but it's important to (pretend to) uphold the myth, because MO is (a) a good society and (b) much better than Chareidim or Reform. But we can't tell people we know it's a myth (except in secret), because then it all falls apart. Plus it's bad for our reputation.

Gosh. This search for truth is mamash exhausting. I think I need to go lie down.

MO, intellectual dishonesty and the Good Wife

A question that has occupied me for a while is 'Who is more intellectually dishonest, the MO (more so the RWMO than the LWMO) or the Chareidim'?

Recent debates about brain death have provided more fodder for thought. I saw that one MO apologist recently accuse the Chareidim of intellectual dishonesty because the Chareidim have no methodology for deciding when Chazal were being literal or allegorical, rather they have a pre-defined outcome (i.e. Chazal are always right) and then they try and develop a theory which leads to that outcome.

But is this so dishonest? I think the Chareidim would say that of course Chazal are always right, that's the core of their belief, and then their job is to try and figure out how that could be. To me, this is the same process one sees with defense lawyers all the time on TV (and I assume in real life). Take the Good Wife for example (an excellent show).Each week it's the same deal - as defense lawyers the starting assumption is that the client is innocent, and their job is to then try and develop a theory that represents that. Sometimes they're right, and sometimes not, but that's their job.

And of course the MO apologists do this too - they have a pre-defined outcome that Torah and Science must both be true, and then they construct their apologetics (which they like to call epistemology because it sounds better) to lead to that outcome. I don't see much difference.

In fact, in this case, I think the Chareidi apologists are actually less dishonest than their MO counterparts. The Chareidim will admit that they believe in Chazal 100% and that's what they hold. However the MO apologists pretend to be on a search for non biased truth, while in fact they are driven by their own pre-conceived outcomes as much as the Chareidim are. Sure, the MO can be more flexible on certain points like Chazal and Science, but ultimately they are constrained by dogma and Orthodox social convention too.

And even worse, I think there is another area where the Chareidim are actually more honest. Chareidi apologists might write nonsense, but they truly believe in their nonsense! However (at least in my experience), the MO apologists don't actually believe in half of what they write, and when cornered or in private they will admit this. Of course I can't name any names because that will get me into trouble, but I have numerous examples across the board of this.

Does it irk me that all these people are intellectually dishonest? Yes.

Rabbinic Leadership and Sheeple

Reflecting on my previous post, I got to thinking that attitudes towards Rabbis (and leadership in general) might not just be a distinguishing feature of different sects of Judaism, rather it may be the most important factor of all.

Skeptics like to point out the evils of religion, and when challenged regarding the evils of Nazism or Communism they respond that those were types of religion too, with their own set of unexamined and non rational beliefs. That may be, but even more important is the fact that both Nazism and Communism were each based on the charismatic leadership of one man, Hitler and Stalin respectively.

Likewise, most religions are based (at least initially) on the charismatic leadership of one man, Moses, Jesus, the Lubavitcher Rebbe. Maybe the key here is to immunize people against blindly following leaders. Maybe that's even more important than trying to get people to think rationally.

But what is it that makes some people blind unthinking adherents of charismatic but crazy leaders? Why did Germans follow Hitler, Russians follow Stalin, or Chabadskers follow the Rebbe? Were these leaders in possession of some charismatic super power that noone can withstand? Maybe you could argue that these leaders were nothing special, they just happened to be at the right time and place, and the masses projected their own visions on to them. Either way, the problem is the sheeple.

So the question becomes, what turns people into sheeple? Why are some individuals or communities susceptible and some immune? Personally I am rather iconoclastic and anti-authority (I think it's a trait that runs in my family), and I could never imagine myself being a sheeple. But maybe I just have never met a truly inspiring / charismatic leader. On the other hand, a good inspiring leader can inspire a world of good. So maybe the problem isn't really irrational thought, overly charismatic leaders or even sheeple. Maybe the problem is just people doing bad things.

The Real Difference between Chareidim & MO

Where does the soul reside? A rationalist analysis

In the recent debates about whether brain death should be counted as death in terms of organ donation, an interesting side debate occurred regarding the soul. The question is, where does the soul reside? Someone proposed that it cannot reside in the arm, because if someone loses their arm, they haven't lost their soul. Likewise for all other organs of their body, except the brain, ergo the soul must reside in the brain. However, I think this logic is not very rational at all. Firstly, the soul lives on the spiritual, non physical plain. Therefore, the soul's connection to the physical plain is clearly not at the physical level, this would be an irrational contradiction in terms. Secondly, it could be that the soul does generally reside in the arm, but if the arm gets cut off, then the soul takes up residence in another part of the anatomy. I guess the brain is a last resort, but only because the person is still living while they have a brain, not because the soul likes to reside there. Certainly, souls don't like to reside in dead bodies, for obvious reasons. Now, souls are immortal, as otherwise there wouldn't be much point to them. Once a soul leaves a body, it becomes disembodied (by definition) and goes up to heaven. It might then come back to earth again to inhabit a different body. This seems quite rational (assuming souls exist in the first place). A multi body soul would be quite an interesting person, I mean soul. But most of this is besides the point. I think that Chareidim, and indeed all Orthodox Jewish fundamentalists, are forced to hold that the brain-dead are not truly dead, as otherwise, we could never make a minyan. Badaboom.

But seriously, I do have a point. Most of the arguments in this debate are erroneous. "Death" in halachah is a halachic state. As someone on a blog noted, we could call it "meis" instead. So who is a meis? Whomever Chazal / Gedolim / Your Local Rabbi says is a meis.

Considering that nobody 2,000 years ago had any clue of modern science, (nor would such knowledge make much difference back then given the absence of modern medical technology), any halachah from 2,000 years ago is bound not to jive with modern medical ethics.

Likewise ancient values from 2,000 years ago (e.g. attitudes towards women, blood, homosexuality etc) are not going to jive with modern values, at least not without a lot of kvetching. I suppose you could say it all comes from God, and God designed the system very wisely, to apply for all times, but then that wouldn't be very rational, would it? There's also no rational reason to suppose that the halachic "process", as defined 2,000-1,000 years ago, is a good "process" that will always get at the "truth" (or rather a verdict consonant with modern technology and/or ethics).

If the value of halachah is greater than the sum of its parts (e.g. meaning, membership in an exclusive club, relief from guilt etc), and/or the reason to hold of halachah is that it came from God, then what is the motivation to be so rational about it? What is the motivation to assume that Chazal must have been wrong about death? Maybe Chazal were right about death halachah (without a good rational reason to think so), just like they were "right" to believe that God wrote the Torah, even though from a truly rational perspective that's a bunch of bs.

It appears that the real motivation here is to ensure that halachah conforms to modern notions of ethics, morals and of course science. From a truly rational perspective, this is very admirable. However from a religious fundamentalist perspective, it strikes at the heart (err I mean brain?) of the entire religious enterprise. Life and death are fundamental religious concepts, if their definition is left to the scientists, then who needs Rabbis? (Speaking metaphorically).

Top Ten Answers to Distressed Orthoprax Guy

1. Become Conservative
2. Become Reconstructionist
3. Become Sephardi
4. Become a woman
5. Become a Lubavitcher
6. Die
7. Contract a serious illness
8. Have lots of kids and no parnassah
9. Live the lie
10. Get over it.

XGH, please help me, please!!!

[A few people have written to me over the past few months (actually years) with very similar emails. The emails were written in confidence, so rather than post them, I compiled this based on an amalgamation of these emails, plus some of my own experiences. The facts in the email below might not match any one specific person, but the experiences being described are spot on. I also added explanatory comments in case non Orthodox people read this. I didn't respond to any of these emails (except in a crappy post about being happy and not worrying) and now I feel bad. What can I say to these people?]

Dear XGH,

I write to you in desperation. A few years ago I was a happy Orthodox Jew. Being Orthodox Jewish means believing in certain key things about God and the Bible, and also keeping ‘halachah’ – a strict set of rules governing pretty much everything in life – what you can eat (only kosher food), when you can sleep with your wife (only 2 weeks a month), not using electricity on Saturday, and a gazillion other rules. It may sound crazy but Orthodox Jews hardly mind keeping all these rules because they believe that they are a special people chosen by God and by keeping all these rules they will get a special place in heaven, and if they don’t keep these rules God will punish them somehow. It sounds crazy to me now when I spell this all out, but for many years I not only believed all this, I took it completely for granted, and I thought that Jews who didn’t believe all this were very ignorant and misinformed. More recently however, I started thinking about religion, and started investigating the various claims about God and the Bible. Without going into details I began to realize that my religion (in fact all religions) were almost definitely completely man made, and that there was virtually no possibility that any of it was true. This realization hit me like a ton of bricks. The rug was pulled out from under me. All of a sudden my entire lifestyle was a lie, based on nonsense. This was worse than anything I could have imagined. Relationships break up, people lose their jobs, but this seemed to be on an entirely different level. My entire identity was wrong. This seemed like a science fiction movie where the character suddenly realizes he is living in a matrix, or maybe that Jim Cary movie where he realizes his entire life is actually a fake TV set. But it was even worse than that. Some friends of mine went through a similar process, and were reasonably happy to just move on. Some of them even delighted in their new found freedom to eat non-kosher food (McDonalds!) or drive a car on Saturday. However I just can’t move on. I liked being Orthodox, I really did. Now when I go to Temple to pray it feels like a lie. I want it to be true but it isn’t. It might just possibly be true I guess, but the likelihood of that seems so remote that I just can’t get myself to believe it. I am stuck in this no mans land between atheism and Orthodoxy. I suppose you could call it agnosticism but it’s much more painful than that. It’s an endless cycle of wanting it to be true, but knowing it isn’t true, but wanting it to be true, and so on and so on. And I’m surrounded by people on both extremes – family and friends who are true believers, who not only think the religion is true but also think you would have to be crazy to not believe, and friends and colleagues who not only think it isn’t true, but who also think that you would have to be crazy to believe. I figured that maybe the transition from believer to non-believer would be painful, maybe it would take a few months or so, but this is ridiculous. It’s been a few years now and it’s as painful as ever. I can’t go forward I can’t go back. Every trip to the Temple is painful. Every time I look at my bookshelf filled with Jewish books that I used to love I feel a pain in my heart – I want to continue to love and learn these books, but I can’t shake the feeling / thought that they are all nonsense. Worse than nonsense even. Losing my faith seems worse than losing a loved one. With the loss of a loved one, you bury them, you sit shiva (7 day Jewish mourning ritual), then you move on. But I can’t sit shiva for my lost religion. Every day it’s there, reminding me of my loss. It’s as if my dead loved one was lying in my living room, dead and decaying, but still here to remind me of my loss. Some friends of mine are very religious without believing in the various dogmatic beliefs; they say I should try that. But no matter how hard I try, I just can’t work up the enthusiasm. The loud voice in the back of my head keeps reminding me that this is all nonsense and a waste of time. Other friends are convinced that they have answers to all my questions – but every time I investigate their claims I find it is all nonsense, they are blinded by their biases. But yet I don’t want to walk away. Complicating things is the fact that I am now in a relationship with a religious woman. She believes, yet she is willing to marry me even though I have ‘doubts’. But what if I decide one day that I am genuinely an atheist? Is this fair? She claims she doesn’t mind and that things will work out, but I know from some married friends that marriage is hard enough without issues of religion. I am driving myself crazy with all this. Some friends say I should just stop thinking about this, and focus on other things. But how can I ignore such a fundamental part of my identity? And anyway, I can’t avoid my religion, it’s too intertwined with my family, my friends, my commuity, my entire lifestyle. And I really don’t want to just walk away, but neither do I want to live a lie. What can I do? What should I do? Am I doomed to spend the rest of my life like this? Please help me!

Sincerely,
[xxxx]

Forget about Science, did Chazal even know Torah?

It is well accepted within Modern Orthodoxy that Chazal did not know modern science, but rather relied on the (wrong) science of their day. Likewise, Chazal's values and beliefs were inevitably influenced by their surrounding culture, hence they believed in magic, demons, and whatever else. Of course it's also provable that Chazal did not know ANE history. All this is no chiddush (nore Kefirah), at least in MO.

But the real question is, did Chazal even know Torah?

According to the MO, Breishis is metaphorical - 'It's teaching you spiritual truths, it's not a science book' etc etc. However it is abundantly clear that Chazal took much of Breishis literally. So it turns out, according to the MO, Chazal didn't know basic peshat in Torah.

Of course according to Biblical scholars, and people who actually study evidence and try to be objective, it's clear that the Bible's authors meant Breishis about as literally as Chazal took it, at least in most parts. I suppose it's possible that certain Breishis stories e.g. Gan Eden, were initially meant as myth, but over time that aspect of it was lost, however the basic creation story of 6 days, firmament, waters etc was the generally accepted cosmology of ancient Mesopotamia, and there's no reason to assume it was originally written as myth. So it turns out, according to the skeptics, that Chazal did know Torah. Funny how things turn out.

Anyways, according to MO, Chazal didn't know science, didn't know history, didn't even know basic peshat in Breishis! So why do we accord them special privilege? Why do we go to great length to sacrifice, to even make life or death decisions based on people whose knowledge of anything wasn't very good? How rational is that?

I think the answer is that le'maaseh, we are not really doing that. Sure we keep up an appearance of following the mesorah, but that's a religious language game. In reality, we are using our sechel, the best modern science has to offer, and a cholent of values from 3000 BCE, 2000 BCE, 1000 CE, what we learned in day school and what the guy on TV said last night to try and figure it all out. And what's wrong with that?

New York Times You Validate Me

From here:

"He was like many Modern Orthodox people who consider themselves to be very grounded and rational (aside from the whole Creationism thing, the Moses-Parting-the-Red-Sea thing, and the God-Giving-the-Ten-Commandments-on-a-Mountain thing). They don’t believe in anything bordering on the alternative, like kabbalah, especially rabbis with supernatural powers."

Hat Tip: MO

Rabbi Avi Shafran turns into a militant skeptic

I never thought I'd see the day, but Avi Shafran has finally turned into a skeptic. Here is a direct quote from his latest post:

"But all of that is, in the end, beside the point – at least the point I tried to make: that we sometimes adopt, and then become invested in positions even in the absence of all the facts. Whatever one’s judgment, let it be based on cold, hard and complete evidence, not only arguable interpretations, assumptions and imaginings."

Amazing!

Rabbi Shlomo Miller: Machmir on Sheitels, Meikil on Arayos

So I don't like to be muckraker, but someone sent me some very interesting stuff. Basically the story is this. A certain Rabbi in a big shul in North America was suspected of having an affair with a married woman. Private investigative services were hired and the affair appeared to be true. I have the investigative report, looks legit. Many in the community wanted the Rabbi to resign, but bizarrely Rabbi Miller paskened that he should stay. Shortly after (or before), a Lakewood style kollel moved into the shul, despite the shul being more Modern.

Without getting into the details of this case, there is a somewhat common theme that I detect here. Remember the Godol who didn't think child abuse was so bad, as long as there wasn't actual penetration? I also recall similar stories. Basically, the morality of these Gedolim appears warped, at least by modern 20th century standards.

Now of course one can argue that all morality is subjective, so who are we to say that their morality is warped while ours is OK, maybe its our morality that is warped? However I think we can fairly objectively show that child abuse is very very bad, even if according to strict halachah it's not technically aroyos, while a woman going bareheaded doesn't actually harm anyone. Of course their counter will be that 'hurting people' isn't the deciding factor, rather halachah is, and who are we to question God?

Anyways, this is all somewhat academic I think, because modern moral values (at least those which are 'lechumrah') tend to be pervasive over time, and when an entire society decides that racism is wrong (or homophobia), the frum community will eventually be shamed into following along.

Which other modern values will eventually creep into the Chareidi world? I imagine things like transparency will have to.

Bashing Broyde

So I see that Rabbi Broyde is getting bashed by some crazy people, including Rabbi Miller, the mean godol from Toronto. Here is what I have to say on the topic:

1. Congratulations! Getting banned (or bashed) by Gedolim is good for business. Just ask you know who.

2. The comments on Yudel Shain's blog are a bit OTT. Sounds like it's all just some dumb yeshivah kid. I mean feministe modernishe pro-fresser SOBs??? Even Rabbi Miller doesn't speak like that!

3. Who cares? Chareidim are nuts, we all know that.

4. Serves him right, he's a proponent of the whole fundie nonsense, well this is fundie-ism for you! If learning Torah is so great, why are some of our greatest Torah learners such shmucks? (Yes, I know the answer, novol birshus hatorah etc etc).

Who really really really wrote the Bible? Scribes of course! Duh.

I just finished reading Scribal Culture and the Making of the Hebrew Bible (which in itself proves something - I never finish books - this must be a good one) and it was a pretty interesting read. It's an entirely new angle on the topic - in fact I don't think the book even mentions J,E,P,D, or R even once. It doesn't try and dissect the Biblical text, or even talk about political or religious motives of different groups of authors. Rather, it is a straight up study of how religious texts were written, edited and compiled in the ANE.

The key to understanding who wrote the Bible is to understand scribal culture and practices. This book answers all those questions you always get when discussing the DH - you know - 'But why would R do that?', or 'Why is the editing so sloppy?' etc. If you don't know how texts were written back then, then you don't know nothing.

The book also contains a few surprises (at least to me). For example, I didn't know about the pasuk in Yirmiyahu which is taken to mean that Yirmiya did not agree with Sefer Devarim, and thought it was a fraud (the proof of this seemed a little lame though). All in all, a good read , and pretty convincing.

PS. Of course all those scribes were Divinely Inspired. They just had to be. That goes without saying. But I said it nonetheless.