Shilton HaSechel שלטון השכל

God vs. Religion

2012-03-01T19:33:00.000-05:00

Ultimately I think the question of whether God exists is irrelevant to religion.

God = a creator, an infinite being, a first cause, etc. None of these understandings of God say anything about religion.

It is possible that God exist? I have no idea, maybe he does maybe he doesn't. However let's say he exists. Let's say one accepts proofs of a first cause or something to create ex nihilo. What have you gained? Nothing about these proofs tells you that God has an interest in men or in giving a strict law code. None of these proofs tell us that God cares about men and most importantly none of these proofs have anything to do with Judaism. You can firmly believe in God but deny Judaism.

Ultimately the only important proof in Judaism is that God revealed himself at some point. Certain thinkers understood this, notably the Kuzari who doesn't base Judaism on a philosophical proof of God but rather on a "historical proof" of the "Kuzari proof".

So why do kiruv agencies and speakers etc. bother "proving God"? Why is it important to them?

I think this is just evidence of the way many of these proofs are formulated. What I mean is that proofs of God are generally made as post-hoc justifications of one's religious beliefs. People believe something and then try to look back at their rather irrational beliefs and try justifying it.

However since these people firmly believe anyways its not so important that the proof exactly match up with the belief.

As long as rational activity about one aspect of the religion can be demonstrated a believer can reflect upon his/her religion and say "hey this religion isn't irrational it's rather clever and it can be proven".

What's important to the believer is the activity of making rational justification not the actual thing proven. Because ultimately the believer doesn't need the proof. The proof is just a way of showing that religion in general is rational. And once God can be proven rationally we make a la pligi and say that all of religion is rational even if we can't quite show how....

Extremism

2012-02-22T21:22:00.000-05:00

If you don't live in a hole you know that there has been much ado lately about Chareidim in Israel, spitting on little girls in Beit Shemesh, making women going to the back of the bus, burning down un-tznius stores. (I'm a little bit late to this but whatever...)

The chareidi warcry about all this is: "It's not us, it's the extremists!"

I think a lot of people miss this point so i'll elaborate on it. Even if most Chareidim disavow the sikrikim (=Chareidi extremists) - which isn't even necessarily true - this does not address the problem. What people have to realize is that extremists don't exist in a vacuum.

Why do we not find Modern Orthodox people reaching the same levels of extremism? The answer is obvious: Fundamentalism breeds violence. Chareidism (which is obviously not a monolithic thing but we will use the term to characterize Ultra-Orthodox Jews, forgive the stereotype) and its uncompromising ethos allows such behavior to thrive. Although Chareidism may not openly advocate violence like this it prepares the ground for it.

The only difference between sikrikim and more quiet Chareidim is that sikrikim, unlike their more moderate brethren, take Chareidism seriously. If Modernity and Secularism and the outside world truly are existential threats to the Jewish people then why be quiet about it? If everyone is out to make the world tamei (impure) then why sit down and let it happen? Grow some balls and bring a stop to it! This is the attitude of these extremists and it directly follows from a Chareidi philosophy that sees secularism as an existential threat.

So people who blame the atrocities on extremists are failing to realize that extremists come from somewhere and in this case they come from communities that see the outside world as evil and threatening.

Hello

2012-02-22T13:11:00.000-05:00

hey folks! (if anyone still follows this blog)

was wondering if anyone would be interested in me continuing my old series on the Documentary Hypothesis. Maybe I'll just write an Ebook and upload it here?

Or does anyone have anything they'd like me to post about it?

You Know You're Reform When...

2011-10-10T05:48:00.000-04:00

One of the excuses the OP use to justify their lifestyle is that they find meaning in the actions they do. In other words even though we dont subscribe to the dogma, we find at least some of Judaism's rituals and practices meaningful so we keep them anyways.

But of course this is no longer Orthodoxy and it is not even Conservative Judaism. Both these movements *officially* believe man is OBLIGATED to follow rituals. You do them whether or not you find meaning in them. If you can find meaning in them then great! But if not you still do them because you have to.

The OP mindset I've described is much closer to the philosophy of Reform Judaism. Reform Judaism believes man is not obligated to follow Halacha and that Halacha is entirely man made. However, Reform Judaism sees value in keeping the rituals which furnish us with meaning while dropping the ones that don't.

My mindset and the mindset of many OP'ers especially those who skip the "less meaningful" rituals (e.g. praying every day, washing hands before bread, wearing tzitzit) is really some form of Reform Judaism.

Is Kiruv Education?

2011-09-21T08:27:00.000-04:00

On Muqata blog there is a discussion about Christian missionaries in Modi'in. Jameel complains about the response of some of the "uber-liberals" in Modiin. The uber liberal in question wrote:

Btw. I know from personal experience that there are orthodox Jewish movements who are actively working on bringing secular Jews (back) to a religious lifestyle or trying to convince gentiles married to Jews to consider conversion to Judaism, but that wouldn't be considered missionary activity, right?

To which Jameel responds sarcastically:

Because after all, living in the Jewish State, educating people about Judaism should be outlawed (in Modi'in). (Stress Added)

Is Kiruv just Jewish education? Just teaching people about Judaism?

What rubbish. Kiruv is not just education for two reasons:

1. Kiruv only teaches Judaism as a means to get people to observe Orthodox Judaism. The primary goal of Kiruv movements is not to provide information but to use information to convince people to change their lives.

2. Certain Kiruv organizations provide false information that can hardly be called "education" but rather "manipulative indoctrination".

I doubt any Jew would be complaining about Christians teaching informative classes about Christianity in a university. The reason people don't like Christian missionaries is because they're not just teaching people who Jesus was for the hell of it but because they are actively trying to convince you to worship Jesus. Similarly if Aish HaTorah delivers a class on Gemara, I couldn't care less, however they don't just teach Gemara - but are selective in what they teach and try to use the teaching of Jewish scriptures as part of a larger program of getting you to don a black hat, abandon your parents and become a mindless Orthodox sheep.

The Extremism Paradox

2011-09-18T09:29:00.001-04:00

It is interesting that two opposite extremes often agree on the interpretations of things.

Following up on the last post... I basically said that the only difference between "mitzvah-killing" in Judaism and "mitzvah-killing" in Islam, from an Orthodox perspective, is our Torah is right and their Quran is wrong.

My goal was to shatter the illusion that Orthodox Judaism is somehow more humane or moderate than other religions.

Ironically what seems to be an extremist on the other side of the spectrum basically agrees with me on a comment on one of Rabbi Slikfin's recent posts

TorahJew said...

Rabbi Slifkin, I'm not sure I understand your discussion here. If one believes that the Torah is God given, then there is no question -- it's actually a simple argument. God gave us the Torah. The Torah tells us to wipe out the nation of Amalek. End of story. The reason why terrorists have no moral basis is that the Koran (which they use to justify the killing of non-Muslims) was not given MiSinai. Am I missing something here? Or there is some issue with the idea of Torah MiSinai? (emphasis mine)

Both of us are trying to show that flaws of "justifying" the Torah but for different reasons.

TorahJew because to him moderation is not a "Torah True" virtue and the only virtuous thing in the world is complete and unquestioning dedication to God without any other standard of morality. Trying to justify killing Amalek is extraneous and comparing divinely inspired Judaism to foolish Islam is ridiculous.

I because of my dedication to moderation and a non-theocentric morality - and my claim that Orthodox Judaism does no represent that ideal.

It's interesting is we are both doing the same exact thing but for different ends! Claiming that the Torah does not represent any sort of humanistic or moderate ideal.

Historically a similar "alliance" happened when it came to the interpretation of the Rambam's Moreh Nevuchim in the Middle Ages. The conservative zealots and the extreme rationalists, joined hands in a sense, both imputing to the Rambam very radical super-rationalistic ideas. The zealots to show what a shocking guy the Rambam really was, and the extreme rationalists in order to show that the Rambam was an extreme rationalist like them!

Just thought it was interesting ...

God said it was ok...

2011-09-11T06:20:00.000-04:00

Rabbi Slifkin posted this

Which got me thinking...

The only reason people accuse terrorists of being wrong is not because of their actions. Everyone, Radical Jihadist Muslims included agree that killing people is basically wrong. However, Jihadists believe that for the greater good and because, and this is important, Allah wants it - that an exceptions must be made.

Our disagreement boils down to contesting that very assumption i.e. that Allah wants it

Jews, Christians and other theists disagree because Muhammad and the Quran do not accurately represent the will of God.

Atheists disagree because they believe there is no God.

But I think most would agree that given that there is a benevolent and all knowing God, and given that this God wants you to kill some people, that that would be ok. Any moral offense you might personally feel to this directive stems from your short-sightedness. How can a puny mortal questions GOD's morality?

That being said killing Amalek is exactly the same as Jihad. The only difference is targets. The Orthodox Jew thinks that Biblical Jews knew who God really wanted killed and Muslims just happen to have got the wrong people. It follows that the act of religious killing itself is not the problem, the problem is one needs to make sure you got the right guy.

For an Orthodox Jew, I don't think you can object to religious killing per se, unless you deny God or literal word for word revelation. Since these are both tenets of Orthodox faith - I think it's time for Orthodox Jews out there to either rethink themsevles or rethink their visceral repulsion to Muslim terrorism.

Nebach! The poor terrorists are just trying to do Hashem's will, but unfortunately they just made a mistake when they ascribed divinity to the wrong prophet thus killing the wrong people...

Tisha B'Av

2011-08-09T03:08:00.000-04:00

There are things to mourn, a lotav shit has happened to us Jews - and I figure one day a year its worth thinking about, but I'm very selective in what I'm commemorating.

I refuse to say kinnot which attribute our misfortunes to our sins. One of the biggest themes in the Tisha B'Av liturgy is how we are supposed to take heart of the misfortunes that befall us and reflect on our sins. I don't believe in many things but this I not only don't believe in but find offensive. People create a God in their own image and strive to imitate their ideal being, people who worship a vengeful God will themselves be vengeful. When one says God punishes sinners one is making more than an ontological statement - one is saying that sinners DESERVE to be punished. And since I disagree with a value that I find so abhorrent, I therefore reject even discussing God in such terms.

I also refuse to mourn a loss of some idyllic age for the simple reason there was never such an idyllic age. The Jewish people have never been better off than they are today, Israel and Jerusalem have never been as prosperous as they are today. I kindav imagine God listening to people crying and saying Nachem on Tisha B'Av and him saying "Jeez! What do these people want from me?! I gave them a whole f'ing country and they're still whining about some fires 2,000 years ago!"

And finally, I honestly don't really care about a Beit HaMikdash. Seems a little silly to me sacrificing hoards of animals to feed/please God. I mean I guess tefillin and lulavs and all sorts of other things are equally silly but I suppose they have more of a tradition behind them. Rabbinic Judaism really only became what it is today in Shuls and Study Halls - not in a Temple. I think my point is that some Jews feel they are not complete without a temple and that their religious practice is somehow not good enough, I however am more than happy to keep doing things the way we've been doing it for the last 2,000 years - i.e. without a Temple.

Even without those things there is still enough to mourn. We've had a difficult past let's not forget it.

History Shmistory

2011-08-08T01:27:00.000-04:00

Harry Maryles just posted on Emes V'Emuna criticizing Rabbi Yosef Kanefsky for refusing to say the bracha "Sh'lo Asani Isha" "Who did not make me a woman" - because nowadays such a bracha is a "chillul hashem".

Of course Chas v'shalom that anyone should change the halacha! It is written it shall be done!
Harry even admits that this halacha bothers him yet refuses to do anything about it!

And he says such things as:

"It is one thing to question why Chazal instituted something or ask why it was instituted in a specific way – one which seems to contradict our modern day sensibilities. But to reject a mandate of Chazal as recoded in the Shulchan Aruch (OC 46:4) is more than just modifying tradition."

he also says

"It is one thing to not understand the reason Chazal enacted certain things..."

What do you mean "not understand"? What kind of silly rhetoric is this? There is no "question here"! It is more than clear why Chazal enacted this bracha. And I wish Harry would say it straight out. The reason Chazal instituted this bracha was simply becasue they were SEXIST. Say it like it is! None of these vague statements about "offending our modern sensibilities" and "questioning Chazal's reasons". Harry won't even say that one word which explains it all so well - SEXISM.

I don't blame Chazal for being sexist in a sexist world anymore than I blame them for not using antibiotics.

But the fact is that if you follow Chazal in such things you have to admit that you are a modern day man/woman following an antiquated sexist law code.

It is an utterly strange philosophy that would require us to OBEY laws which were clearly legislated in a sexist spirit. It is a symptom of the ridiculous anti-historicism which allows Orthodoxy to continue...

Wake up people! Halacha was not created in a vacuum! It was formed in very specific historical contexts! Treating it like it is some eternal unchanging LAW is the height of stupidity.

Divrei Torah

2011-07-26T02:46:00.000-04:00

The way to give a good Devar Torah is to "connect" it to our lives. How does the Chumash speak to me? What lesson can we learn from this pasuk? How do God's words apply to us?

Often I've prepared a good, sound Devar Torah and have needed to consult with someone to come up with a good ending. An ending which makes people feel like this isn't some abstract scholarly discussion (which would be more than enough for me) but is a moral and edifying lesson. Sometimes I just bullshit an ending that has only the most tenuous connection to the actual Torah. (And therefore we should all be good!) But hey, it's all about pleasing the crowd I guess...

What bothers me is people taking the text and treating it anachronistically. Which is almost inevitable seeing as the lessons of the text are intended primarily to teach pastoral nomads how to behave when they've plundered a city and the correct way to rape captives. The text's original intent has very little to offer us.

But hey I'm a pretty post-modern guy. I can live with a Death of an Author mentality. I actually like taking a text and imbuing it with new meaning. The text becomes fluid and eternal. The words rise up from their humble beginnings and become something so much more.

So why does it bother me when other people do it?

Because other people don't understand that they're not discussing original intent. They think that the text originally intended to portray Moshe as tzitzit wearing tzadik with a black hat. There is no difference to them between the Torah as it was written and the Torah as it was interpreted. To them there is THE TORAH. And THE TORAH has some great lessons to discuss around the table over some cholent.

And that just bothers me. That people are too ignorant to tell the difference.

My ideal is someone like James Kugel who is cognizant of both the original intent of the text and also appreciates its interpretation and the new meaning it is given as something religiously meaningful..

Incorporeality

2011-07-05T04:01:00.000-04:00

It's interesting that modern Jews, at least in my experience, seem so adverse to thinking of God as a corporeal being.

Obviously Maimonides had a huge influence on Jewish conceptions of God to the point where it is considered heresy nowadays by most Orthodox Jews to talk about God's hand or face...

But I think it's more than that. People feel, or at least I used to feel, that a corporeal God was a ridiculous idea. God as a man on a mountain with a big white beard was an absurd notion... Of course God has no body! How could one even think otherwise?

But if you think about it. The notion of a big man with a flowing white beard and a huge golden throne perched on Russel's teapot and directing the events of the world - has just as much evidence supporting it as an incorporeal God.

And I can understand what a big man is, I can imagine it... I can't understand what "incorporeal" means or even explain it. "It's there but it's not physical" What the hell does that mean?

So as far as I'm concerned - if you believe in God - God should be described corporeally - for the simple reason that you can imagine a big skyfather. Jews shouldn't fancy themselves sophisticated just because they avoid describing God with a body. Truth is it's just as silly.

Evidence is evidence and if it's lacking it doesn't matter whether God is an invisible force or a glowing Olympian God.

Judaism Believes...

2011-07-03T13:09:00.000-04:00

It really bothers me a lot when people say "Judaism says: ...." or "Judaism believes..." As soon as one has let those two words slip s/he has already said a lie. Judaism is not a monolithic philosophical system. Saying "Judaism believes" is roughly equivalent to saying "philosophers say" or "Americans believe"

When it comes to what "Judaism" thinks about life the universe and everything - pretty much anything which could be thought has been thought. So at least philosophically speaking you cannot say the following things:

Judaism believes in free will and denies determinism

Judaism believes in Heaven and Hell

Judaism believes God is incorporeal

Judaism believes in a Messiah

Judaism believes in creation ex nihilo

All these statements which I've heard way too many times are false. Although one can say that historically Jewish thinkers tend to believe in free will, creation ex nihilo and the Messiah, one cannot state categorically that Judaism believes in these things - unless of course you don't want to include Chasdai Crescas, the Ralbag and some forms of Chassidut in the category of "Judaism".

People don't like uncertainty. They don't want a choice between thinkers. They don't want someone to tell them "Some people think this, and some people think that." No! People want their religion served on a plate. They want sturdy foundations and unquestionable tenets. They cannot accept heterogeneity.

Texts Meaning What They Say

2011-07-02T16:21:00.000-04:00

As far as I can tell until the advent of Modern Literary Scholarship, people made a very interesting assumption about any text that they were presented to interpret.

They assumed that the text did not mean what it says.

When it says God raised his hand he didn't really raise his hand.

When the Mishna says one thing it actually means another.

When Reuven slept with Bilha he did not actually sleep with her.

When the Gemara mentions a giant bird it doesn't actually refer to a giant bird.

The concept of taking a text at face value, of actually taking the words in a text seriously, and assuming that people write what they mean is a very modern concept. It is I believe THE fundamental difference between approaching a text in a modern way and approaching a text in a traditional way.

It's interesting that this does not seem to be intuitive at all. I cannot say at any point in my life before I was introduced to the modern approach, that it ever occurred to me to read a text as it was. I think this has to do with cultivating a sense of objectivity. Our natural inclination is to interpret any text by our standards and sensibilities. Due to almost unbridgeable cultural gap between me and a person living a thousand years ago it is almost inevitable that I will interpret a text differently than the original intent if I try to impose my own sensibilities on it.

Setting objectivity as a goal actually one of the most counter-intuitive things a person can we tend to interpret a text in light of ourselves and put ourselves into the text....

The Heart's Eye

2011-05-26T07:40:00.000-04:00

The foundation of all knowledge is "empiricism". I see a swan so I assume swans exist. I jump in a lake so I assume that this lake exists. Many observations can lead to indirect form of knowledge like scientific theories.

But the huge corpus of human knowledge is all based on something so frail and fallible. Everything we humans claim to know comes from our senses. We attribute "Reality" to the observations of our senses but the truth is that these senses are far from infallible and we humans live in a world dominated by a persistent Cartesian doubt

There is another sense. Perhaps we can call it emotion. Feelings. Faith. Scientists generally reject such things as sources of truth. Just because you FEEL that you are Napoleon doesn't make you into a conquering dictator. Just because you FEEL that an invisible man gave you a holy book doesn't make a revelation at Sinai happen.

Or at least that's what the scientist will say.

But why are the impressions made on our senses any better than impressions made on our hearts. Why is the former a more valid source of truth in many people's eyes. Maybe I actually am Napoleon if I feel like it. Maybe God does exist if I feel it in my heart. If my eyes fail to confirm God perhaps my heart can.

Perhaps the feelings of the heart are just as much a window to this thing called "Reality" as the observations of the eyes.

One obvious advantage of empirical observations vs. "emotional observations" is that empirical observations have proven themselves useful. The advance of technology, improvement of human living conditions, medicine, science all the foundations of modern society all come from accepting "empiricism".

Have the feelings of the heart proven as useful? That is a matter which needs further study.

But we have to keep in mind that it is the heart that originally validated empiricism. The human heart is certain that it is surrounded not by an illusion - but by something real - something with an independent existence. Philosophers can prattle all day about whether or not this world we live in is not some sort of solipsistic delusion. But even the most skeptical philosopher will go home to eat supper - unafraid that his home is but a delusion. But all of this is merely a feeling an "observation of the heart". Before we had invented tools or dabbled in technology we did not know that empiricism would prove useful. But we felt that it was true. We felt that what we saw is what there is. Without questioning....

This is perhaps a variation of the lame blogger argument that can be summed up as "I don't know other people exist but I assume they do and same goes for God." Most people, myself included, have laughed at this argument. But perhaps there is more to it than meets the eye.

If you feel God exists. If your "heart's eye" literally screams that he is there watching you. Then is it any worse than believing that the car parked outside your house is actually there....

Avoiding the Nitty Gritty

2011-05-16T01:57:00.000-04:00

Is it not somewhat interesting that no Orthodox (that I know of - except maybe Cassuto) - TMS supporting - scholar has ever sat down and methodically discussed and given alternative explanations for the textual variations in the Pentateuch - the likes of which are used to establish the veracity of the Documentary Hypothesis. Sure, I think everyone has taken a crack at explaining the differences between YHWH and Elohim, or the differences between Yaakov and Yisrael - but I'm yet to see an Orthodox scholar sit down and explain the convergence of evidence surrounding these variations.

I've discussed the evidence of the DH in detail in the past. By convergence of evidence I mean the fact that not only does God's name change but also different sets of vocabulary and terminology accompany each name change AND name changes often correspond to parallel accounts.

So even if Umberto Cassuto, or M.Z. Segel give alternative explanations as to why God is sometimes called YHWH and sometimes called Elohim - AFAIK they have never explained WHY these changes are accompanied by other textual variations. When you find three or more types of variations all occurring in tandem - you have to wonder if there isn't some sort of pattern....

Orthodox "rebuttals" of Biblical criticism always deal with generalities. They will try to knock down general principles of the DH without even referring to the "boring", pedantic word lists which the theory is based on....

Part of the fault here is that of modern, popular supporters of the DH who fail to make their case. Richard Elliot Friedman's - Who Wrote the Bible - presents the conclusion of Biblical criticism - clearly explaining who is J who is E etc. But he barely makes any sort of convincing case for these divisions, he just assumes they are true. It is sad that I was only convinced of the (basic idea) of the DH by referring to books from the 20's. Maybe modern Biblical scholarship (or at least the type of Biblical scholarship available to us laypeople, perhaps in the academic world there is more discussion about the nitty gritty) suffers from misplaced confidence that it's theories are well established facts and no longer feels a need to try proving it...

Either ways I laugh every time I hear a response from Orthodoxy to Bible Criticism . Sometimes friends of mine confront me and ask me if I realize that it's all rubbish made up by Protestant antisemites. I invariably ask them if they sat with a Chumash and a word list and highlighted word and name variations in the different chapters of Genesis.

Most of them grudgingly have to admit they haven't.

For some reason these confident critics of Biblical scholarship never found the time to actually do the dirty work and check how many times it says והקימותי את בריתי or ויעצב אל לבו in Genesis.

Leave the Bible scholarship to those who are willing to sit and read word lists.

And don't trust the Kiruv Klowns because they are too busy looking for Torah codes to open up S.R. Driver....

People

2011-04-27T22:28:00.000-04:00

Some discursive thinking out loud:

People who follow Bronze Age books will not magically start thinking for themselves the second the Bronze Age book is taken away. Even in a world of enlightened atheists - people would still want to be TOLD what to do. They would still not use their own logic or thinking to determine important issues.

Because, call me elitist, but the masses don't think. They believe whatever they were told as children without ever giving it a second thought...

They would just listen to other people. Would demand other books or people or thinkers to tell them what's right, what's wrong and whether slaughtering a cow in a specific spot in Jerusalem is therapeutic.

Even if that other book was the most enlightened book on the planet surely we should have faith in man's ability to turn even the most logical literature in the world into mindless dogma and a source of unquestioning subservience...

Is God an integral part of dogmatism? Are atheism, enlightenment, democracy, and freedom immune from degenerating into the same dogmas they aim to replace? Was Communism any less dogmatic because it lacked a God?

Who's to say other people will do any better than the Bronze Age book?

Who's to say that the world will be better without a religion? The masses will follow something. And who knows what that something could be?

Thinking About The Watchmaker Analogy

2011-04-26T20:25:00.000-04:00

To quote William Paley:

In crossing a heath, suppose I pitched my foot against a stone, and were asked how the stone came to be there; I might possibly answer, that, for anything I knew to the contrary, it had lain there forever: nor would it perhaps be very easy to show the absurdity of this answer. But suppose I had found a watch upon the ground, and it should be inquired how the watch happened to be in that place; I should hardly think of the answer I had before given, that for anything I knew, the watch might have always been there. (...) There must have existed, at some time, and at some place or other, an artificer or artificers, who formed [the watch] for the purpose which we find it actually to answer; who comprehended its construction, and designed its use. (...) Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature; with the difference, on the side of nature, of being greater or more, and that in a degree which exceeds all computation.

I think this is the gist of it :
1. When I see a watch I know intuitively that it was made by a human being.
2. Why do I have this intuition? The complexity of the watch is that which intuitively suggest an intelligent designer.
3. Similarly the complexity of nature should intuitively suggest to us such a designer.
4. Since this designer is clearly NOT a human therefore it must be someone else i.e. God.

Ok now the problems:
The first proposition is sound.

The second proposition: The complexity of the watch is that which intuitively suggests an intelligent designer. Who says that it is the complexity of the watch which suggest to me that it is made by an intelligent designer. Perhaps it is my prior experience with watches and things crafted by man? Would a cave man instantly recognize the watch as intelligently and purposefully designed? Would an alien? I'm not sure...

The third proposition: Similarly the complexity of nature should intuitively suggest to us such a designer. A few problems: Firstly if it's so intuitive why the need for the watch analogy in the first place? I should just KNOW in a flash of intuition! Maybe it's my תאוות for sex and drugs which are blinding me and the watch will knock some sense into me....

Wikipedia suggests that the watch is merely a rhetorical device in which case the argument boils down to: "You know nature is designed because it's complex. THE END" which is a blatant non-sequitir. One has to explain WHY complexity automatically suggests design...

But another question! If everything is designed either by God or Man then how is it that it is so easy for Paley, in the quote above, to distinguish between rock and watch. According to his own logic I should NOT be able to distinguish between the two because they are BOTH products of design. Either God's or man's. Have you my dear theist, ever seen an un-designed thing? You have? Then you've seen something not designed by God? A little kefira-dick don't you think?

I suppose you could say maybe that only organisms are designed. (Even though that would be kefira-dick) You have to admit they are more complex than rocks....

In which case the argument is I can intuitively discern watches from rocks the same way as I can discern kangaroos from rocks.... I guess that could be sound if there weren't all the other objections...

The Fourth Proposition: Since this designer is clearly NOT a human therefore it must be someone else i.e. God. Or martians.

"Silly, atheist! Where did the martians come from!?" "hmmmm maybe from the same place God came from...."

Also - how do we know the designer is not a human? What in our intuition allows us to discern between man-made design and God-made design? In fact if we take the analogy seriously it is actually suggesting that nature shows signs of being man-made not God made. We simply have no rock stamped MADE BY GOD to compare nature to...

I guess you could say because we know from elsewhere that man doesn't know how to manufacture orangutans...

AND FINALLY:

Intuition is sometimes rubbish. Humans see designs in french toast, clouds and ink splotches.... Wouldn't put too much faith in it...

The watchmaker argument is an appeal to emotions, an elegant statement about the complexity of nature which some cannot but attribute to God. But it is not logic nor should it be presented as such. To stand in awe of the universe and see a maker behind it is fine. However to call that science or logic is just incorrect.

Read the Wikipedia article for a fuller discussion....

Why So Few Female Skeptics?

2011-04-20T22:47:00.000-04:00

I can't say this is a fact because I have never really looked into it but the feeling I get from my personal day to day experience is that Orthopraxic girls are very rare. Maybe I'm just hanging around the wrong circles but while I know lots of Orthoprax (or virtually Orthoprax) guys I barely know any Orthoprax gals...(though I know some who I feel could be tipped over the edge with a bit of subtle encouragement - if I was so inclined - which I'm not)

So either I'm just completely wrong about this or we're dealing with a real thing in which case we have to wonder WHY?

Some purely speculative pet theories (Again: assuming I'm describing a real phenomenon which I'm not sure about) :

In the Orthodox world girls are taught much less of the fundamental texts of Orthodoxy i.e. the Talmud and Rabbinic literature... Therefore they do perhaps do not know enough about Orthodoxy to effectively criticize it.

A variant of the first theory: When immersed in "Talmudism" one begins to think of religion as a very logical methodological thing. When religion fails, under scrutiny, to stand up to this expectation one ends up being skeptical. However, women who generally do not study Talmud, or even if they do - not as much as men, perhaps (and excuse me if this sounds a little stereotypical or sexist) think of religion less logically and more emotionally. Just to clarify, I'm not saying women are inherently "emotional". All I'm saying is that study Talmud might diminish the emotional element in religion and make one perceive religion in a much more technical or logical way. Since religion is not logical the Talmudic man will find himself at a bit of a loss. Since religion IS emotional the non-Talmudic woman will not.

Orthodoxy's sexism is too much for a self-respecting female to put up with and so cruising along Orthopraxly is just too distasteful if you think it's all rubbish. According to this Orthodox women are not less skeptical than men but merely pick up and leave.

Of course all of this is meaningless speculation without proper studies, but it's fun to muse about....

Please everyone, share your theories or tell me that I'm wrong about female skeptics...

(Oh just a clarification 'cuz I get the feeling in the comments that some people don't get this. I'm not running around rocking payos and a black hat and being Orthoprax. I associate with LWMO. So everything I describe is from my LWMO perspective. Back when I was in the Chareidi world I did not meet one male or female Orthopraxer and literally thought I might be the only one. Only very recently did I meet a black-hat Orthopraxer)

Orthoprax Pros and Cons

2011-04-17T10:51:00.001-04:00

Pros:

You don't have to break ties with your fundamentalist family and friends
You can continue a lifestyle you're familiar with and continue living comfortably in a community you like
You can continue enjoying the bits and pieces of Judaism you like

Cons:

You have to speak with a bit of a filter in order to keep people appeased - AKA lie about your true beliefs
You have to feign horror when hearing that someone has angered God by eating a cheeseburger
You have to keep a lot of annoying and also useless things which mean nothing to you
You have to take part in some morally offensive things like listening attentively to a chapter of the Torah commanding genocide...

Is it worth it? Or should we get out while we still can?

I'm at the point where I just wanna believe so that I can stop worrying about it. The clock is ticking and I'm not gonna have the opportunity to leave forever...

Inertia is strong through.

God, I wish I knew what to do....

On Being "Aished"

2011-04-07T11:01:00.000-04:00

So someone Emailed me this essay he wrote about Kiruv Organizations. Scroll down for the article - but first a few words from me:

I've said it once and I'll say it again. I hate Aish HaTorah, Ohr Samayach, Project Chazon and all sorts of Kiruv organizations.

I don't object to kiruv perse - people have the right to peddle their religion and for some people Orthodoxy may just be the right thing. Different things work for different people and I think it's more than legitimate to invite irreligious people to Shul or your Shabbat meal and give them a taste of what Orthodoxy is.

But I can't abide manipulation and I can't abide lying. Presenting Orthodox Judaism as "scientific" fact is a lie.

And that's exactly what the organized Kiruv organizations do. Rabbi Slifkin has been recently posting about the use of the Talmudic "four animal proof" which is such a blatant lie that I can't imagine that the kiruv workers using it don't know that they're bending the truth.

I can't abide the Kuzari proof which is logically unsound in countless ways. I recently sat and forced myself to listen to a Lawrence Kelleman lecture about the Kuzari proof. The way he bent facts, cleverly used logical fallacies, and used "scientific" terminology was actually sickening. I hope to God that he is just severely naive and is not doing it on purpose.

I can't stand sugar coating the truths of Orthodoxy. Yes Orthodoxy is sexist, yes the Talmud did not have a high opinion of gentiles, yes certain sects of Orthodoxy are anti-scientific. But the Kiruv organizations will never tell it's "victims" any of these things 'till they're deep in the system. And because people who are being "mekareved" have almost no knowledge about Judaism - they have no idea that Kiruv workers are carefully leaving out the less savory bits of Orthodoxy in their presentations...

Do these organizations have no integrity? Do they believe that the ends justify the means? Or are these types of Kiruv workers just as naive as their targets?

Anyways here's article:
On Being Aished

Jewish History as "Proof" of God

2011-04-04T06:16:00.000-04:00

We’ve all heard the familiar refrain “Believe in Judaism because of the miraculous history of the Jews! How could such an oppressed and pursued nation have survived the tribulations of the exile if not through some sort of miracle?”

Like most attempts to base Judaism on some sort of “proof” – this one IMHO fails. At best our history can inspire but it can’t prove and can’t even point or hint to some sort of divine agent who protects Israel.

How does one go about destroying the Jewish people/religion once they’ve become a relatively large religious movement spread all over the world? Are there really so many people plotting the destruction of world Jewry? And is such a scenario even a possibility were God to leave us to the vicissitudes of the world?

The most straightforward way to rid the world of Jews is to kill them. And indeed over the years many Jews have been killed because of their religion or “race”. However, it is important to remember that despite what we say in our Passover liturgy - no government or power (AFAIK) until Hitler ever made an attempt to physically destroy the Jewish People in its entirety. (With the exception of the story of Megillat Ester which is of dubious historicity) The uniqueness of the Holocaust in the long history of anti-Semitism is that it was meant to be a “Final Solution.” Progroms, crusades, and blood libels were not meant as a “final solution” to a “Jewish problem”. The reason that Jews physically survived the exile is actually quite simple – no one until the Holocaust ever tried to exterminate them completely.

The above is equally true when it comes to converting Jews. Although in a few cases entire countries tried to convert their Jewish populations (many times in Spain) we must keep in mind that both Christianity and Islam officially believe that forced conversions are not valid.

It is not a miracle that we survived if nobody was actually plotting to annihilate us, physically or spiritually, in the first place.

Another important factor worth considering is the dispersion of Jews. Jews are and were found in almost every corner of the Earth. Jews have lived in Europe, the Middle East, Russia, Buchara, Georgia, Britain, and even the New World and the Far East. With so many Jews living in so many places and under so many different religions and governments - it is literally impossible to convert or exterminate every last Jew in the world. The amount of organization that would be required is mind boggling and would require the most outrageous conspiracy to implement. Even if one or two anti-Semitic nations decided that a world with no Jews would be a better place, one or two nations simply do not have the power to kill/convert all the Jews spread out all over the world. It would take a veritable pandemic of universal, murderous anti-semitism for such a terrible thing to be even vaguely possible.

I think the better question to ask about Jewish History is “How couldn’t the Jews survive the Exile?” And I have to admit that I don’t find it too miraculous that we managed to survive when the entirety of our “nation” was never really in jeopardy.

The Difference Between A Mekubal and a Researcher

2011-02-09T15:49:00.000-05:00

The title of this post could equally be called the difference between a Yeshiva Rabbi and a Talmud Researcher

I The Mekubal

I would say (at least one of) the major cornerstone of traditional Orthodox "scholarship"whether it be in the study of the Bible, the Talmud or Kabbalah is the concept of a Mesora. The idea of a Mesora in this context is as follows: People who write things down are (usually) not expressing their own views but rather are merely penning a timeless tradition which ultimately stems from Sinai. This idea is called in the Talmud the Torah She B'al Peh. While there are obvious problems with taking this approach to it's extreme, and I doubt even the most extreme Chareidim accept this completely, it nevertheless has a huge affect on how Jewish texts were/are learned traditionally.

Take for example the Arizal (15th century Kabbalist of Tzfat who first expressed what is called "Lurianic Kabbalah") Reasons the traditional scholar, "The Arizal did not make up his philosophy from nowhere it MUST be based on a tradition." (Or perhaps in the case of the Arizal a visit from Eliyahu Hanavi) If this is true then we can explain and understand things from before the 15th century with the aid of the Arizal's teachings.... because of the Arizal we know that when the Gemara says such and such it means ABC and D and when the Zohar says such and such it means EFG and H . The thing about a mesora is that all the "gedolim" between Moshe and Arizal should know about it. Therefore it is utterly sensible to interpret things from the 13th century according to doctrines only written down in the 15th century. Because before these things were written down they were surely known word of mouth as oral traditions....

II The Researcher

The researcher follows this approach: One looks at every text independently AND contextually. That is to say that the way the Arizal interpreted the Zohar is not necessarily how other people interpreted it in the past, and is perhaps not how the author of the Zohar intended. Similarly the way the Talmud interprets a verse is not necessarily how the Mishna interprets a verse or what the verse was intended to mean in the first place. The researcher essentially ignores or disregards the possibility of oral traditions. Additionally there is the concept of context. The researcher instead of seeing the message of a given work as something timeless sees it as a something influenced by the circumstances, surroundings and influences of the author. So the Zohar is best understood in it's Spanish context and the Talmud Bavli in it's Babylonian context etc.

To understand the Zohar based on the Arizal or the Mishna based on the Talmud can sometimes be anachronistic... Sometimes the Talmud is mechaven to what we would call the original intent of the Mishna at other times the Talmud's interpretation of the Mishna reflects the world and ideas of the Talmud more than those of the Mishna....

Flipping Out

2011-02-07T15:59:00.000-05:00

It occurs to me that "flip-outs" and off the deep-end, black hat BT's make the following mistake.

For whatever reason these idividuals have decided to dedicate their lives to Judaism. However they often decide that a form of Chareidism is the best way to do this. Now it is possible that these individuals actually identify with the extreme anti-historical anti-critical attitude to Judaism (as opposed to regular Orthodoxy which only mildly anti-historical) however I sometimes find that these people simply don't know enough about the difference in ideology between Chareidism and Modern Orthodoxy.

IMHO, though I can't say I've actually heard anyone admit this or anything, these people mistake Chareidism as a difference in degree rather than a difference in ideology. Reasons the enthusiastic BT/flip out: "I want to dedicate my life to Judaism, and Chareidim are the people who are the strictest about Judaism therefore I'll don the black hat and grow out my peos"

Now it is true that Chareidim are the strictest about Judaism but this is an ideological issue. Chareidim are stricter because they believe that the best way to be Jewish IS to be strict. However a more Modern Orthodox person would perhaps argue that strictness is not always the best way to go.

Also the strictness of Chareidism often stems from literalism and inability to perceive that times have changed (again even Modern Orthodoxy suffers from similar problems but to a lesser degree.)

So our BT or flip-out has perhaps not realized that stricter does not necessarily mean BETTER and that Chareidism stems not so much from a higher degree of dedication to the Jewish faith but rather from a different ideology.

In which case our BT must ask him/herself if s/he REALLY agrees with this ideology and whether this ideology is really better than Modern Orthodoxy....

That's what I figure but what do y'all think am I totally off the mark here?

Deifying Rabbis

2011-01-22T14:12:00.000-05:00

Humans are selfish and when it comes down to it they won't do anything unless they perceive some sort of reward. (Of course the definition of a "reward" can be quite fluid)

Why follow halacha? What practical benefits will halacha bring to my life?
A. It will keep God happy and failure to keep halacha will make him mad
B. It will make my life better. After all God knows what actions lead to a good life.
C. God said so and he's really smart. Presumably he had a good reason.

All these reasons and variations thereof are all great reasons to keep the Torah. However there is the slightly inconvenient issue that most of Rabbinical Judaism is Rabbinical. In other words most of the rituals, blessings, and celebrations we practice did not come straight from God but rather were instituted by Rabbis.

And that brings us to a problem of incentive. It's all well and good to dedicate ones life to GOD's word. Because God knows best. But unfortunately this reason will only suffice to explain a small fraction of the large corpus of mostly Rabbinical halacha. What of the rest? Why keep it?

Well from a legal standpoint we have the famous derasha לא תסור מן הדבר אשר יגידו לך ימין ושמאל . This verse, according to the Gemara is a commandment from God to listen to the Rabbis. Their word is His word.

But perhaps that just doesn't cut it. Still Rabbis are humans. Correct? What if they make a mistake? Why would a wise God command us to follow a mistaken pesak, or takana? And why should I follow a halacha made up by a mortal man if I don't agree with that halacha? What makes Rabbi So and So cleverer than me?

Perhaps it is these "dangerous" questions which led to another doctrine. A doctrine that makes the words of the Rabbis equivalent to God's not just legally but also literally.

Perhaps the Rabbis were more than human. Perhaps they were actually infallible "angels" with a direct line to God. They weren't speaking as humans but rather through Ruach Hakodesh. The Gemara is just as much the word of God as the Torah because the Rabbis were but mouthpieces for the almighty.

It follows that we should take the miraculous stories about them literally. After all people with a direct line to God surely can perform miracles. And it also follows that people with a direct line to God not only knew Torah but also knew all of science, history, and everything. If the Rabbis are but God's proxies on Earth then their word is God's word. And God can't be wrong.

The Chareidi "deification" of Chazal is not just naivete or literalism. It serves a fundamental purpose in religious incentive. We want to follow the dictates of the All-knowing Almighty - not the interpretations of mortal men - no matter how clever they are. Because man can be wrong but God cannot. Therefore a new "species" of men must be invented. Men who are angels is the most literal sense - literal messengers of God. Following these people is analogous to following God himself.

And then one can sleep safely at night knowing that not only do the Rabbis want you to say Keriat Shma Al Hamitta. But also God בכבודו ובעצמו

LWMO

2011-01-16T16:55:00.000-05:00

A Suggestion:

Chareidi community is a bad idea. Orthopraxy isn't so bearable when stuck in a community which demands that religion be THE center of life. Having a dubious truth-system and a rigorous law code at the center of one's life is no fun for anyone. RWMO (Right Wing Modern Orthodoxy) also isn't always too much fun. My suggestion find those LWMO communities (if you're lucky enough to still have that sort of "mobility", in which case Orthopraxy might not even be the best option....). LWMO (Left Wing Modern Orthodoxy) is much more accepting of "leniencies". Does not think you're gonna go to Hell if you don't keep every single commandment meticulously and generally is a lot more tolerant of religious diversity.

This tolerance extends to hashkafa too. "You believe in the Documentary Hypothesis?" "Nu, I've heard worse just don't marry a shiksa."

Basically the LWMO just don't take all this stuff too seriously and don't identify with every dogma and law as emphatically as more right wing strains of Orthodoxy. All you really gotta do to be part of the community is keep three things

A. Keep Shabbat and Chagim
B. Keep Kosher
C. Keep Racial Purity (a.k.a no intermarriage)

And that's about it (oh yeah, if you're a man stick a little piece of cloth on your head) , you keep those 3 things and you can be an atheist for all anyone cares. (But keep your public skepticism to infrequent snorts during the Rabbis speech, no one likes an atheist preacher. )

The longer one lives in LWMO world the less one care about religion, atheism etc. (Which is clearly to the detriment of this blog)

Singing

2011-01-10T17:55:00.000-05:00

More Shilton HaRegesh than Sechel:

Recently a close friend of mine asked me why I sing zemirot on Shabbat with so much erm... fervor I guess you could call it. "But Shilton, to you it's all meaningless no? Does this mean you're still somewhat religious 'inside'?"

And as I've written here many times I guess I am. Intellectually Judaism is rubbish as far as I'm concerned. (the study of rubbish on the other hand....) But emotionally it still speaks to me. Despite all the things I want to forget from my days in Yeshiva one thing remained with me that I like to remember -and that's the singing.

Sitting around a Rabbi's Shabbat table, looking at the candles on a spotless white table cloth. Surrounded by good friends dressed in their Shabbat clothes. The Rabbi finally stops butchering the peshat of some pasuk in another inane devar torah and everyone is silent for but a moment. And then everyone looks to one of the bochurim with the good singing voice and waits for him to start a niggun. And you smile as he starts the haunting tune of Yedid Nefesh. Unlike some of the bochurim you know the meaning of the Hebrew words and you close your eyes and concentrate on the meaning of the song. A song about yearning for something so elusive.A desperate hope that the darkness will be lifted and He will reveal himself. Begging for the fulfillment of an intense love bordering on sickness. And ending simply "Oh please quickly, love! For the time has arrived!"

Then someone starts the next song Bilvavi Mishkan Evne. Words even more moving and poetic than the last ones. About giving up everything for God. Offering one's soul on an altar to the Almighty. Turning one's whole being into a sanctuary for something greater than oneself.

Ya Ribon Alam - one line in that song always got to me - "if a man could live a thousand years - his strength would count for nothing"

K'ayal Ta'arog - A desire for God so strong that it has to be described as the soul thirsting. "Oh how long must we wait!" cries the writer.

And many others.

There was so much beauty in those songs. Yearning, loving, hoping, crying, searching. Mankind's deepest emotions all encapsulated in these little songs. Yes all these songs were all directed to an invisible skyfather. But somehow there was still something sublime about them. Something bordering on that ambiguous term - spirituality.

So thank you Yeshiva for giving me those moments that I cherish 'till this day. And I will continue to sing praises to "God" and continue to be moved by the words of poets from hundreds of thousands of years ago that still speak to mankind today.

The Zohar

2011-01-05T18:35:00.000-05:00

There's been some recent talk recently on the blogosphere about how old the Zohar is. Jewish mysticism and the Zohar in particular happen to be personal interests of mine so i thought I'd add some thoughts.

Before one even looks at Isaiah Tishby's impressive array of arguments against Tannaitic authorship of the Zohar (Introduction to Mishnat HaZohar) one has to ask a more basic question. Which is why did a book which was purportedly written in the 2nd century not get quoted directly or even mentioned until the late 13th century?

Unless there was an incredible consensus, on the level of a conspiracy, to keep a well known work out of any written work for hundreds of years, then its fairly safe to assume that no one or almost no one knew about the Zohar until the days of Moshe De Leon.

Which would make sense if it weren't written until his days.

But no fear. There are various stories about how Moshe De Leon obtained the heretofore forgotten book. And it's even accepted among various mekubalim that the Zohar was "revealed" after a period of being "lost". I forget who said it but it was something to the extent of "How fortunate I am to be born in a generation when the Zohar was revealed"

This is all well and good but one should generally not trust mysterious texts found in caves and delivered by ship to Spain. How did Moshe De Leon know that the text he "revealed" was written by Rashbi? How did anyone know that it was written by Rashbi? Mesora? But we've already pointed out that there was clearly a long period of time when the book was generally not known as attested to by its absence in hundreds of Rabbinic texts over a time span of almost a thousand years. (Again I mean direct quotations, books have been written trying to find "Zoharic" concepts in earlier Rabbinic literature)

Is it possible that the ideas of the Zohar were always around from the times of Rashbi and that it was merely put in writing in the 13th century? Is it possible that a chain of secret mekubalim handed down the Zohar secretly over thousands of years only "revealing" it in the 13th century?

Anything is possible. But I find it quite unlikely.

Perhaps more discussion to follow.....

What to Write?

2010-12-16T03:54:00.000-05:00

This blog is getting dusty again.... I kinda get the feeling that the subject of Jewish skepticism is like beating a dead dog - yes we're skeptical - yes we don't believe B'emuna Shlema - not much else to say. I would like to keep the blog alive but need some inspiration - should I just write about Judaism in general? Dunno. Ideas anyone?

Funny Video

2010-11-21T02:13:00.000-05:00

I thought this was hilarious because in Yeshiva I literally sat through hundreds of these idiotic Divrei Torah. I wish I would've stood up and asked some of these questions to the ignorant bochurim proudly parroting some piece of wisdom found in a "D'var Torah compendium" yet were still unaware that the famous Biblical commentator did not author a commentary called "the Stone of Ezra"

Excuses Not Questions

2010-11-11T08:06:00.000-05:00

Someone emailed me this article from the free weekly Israeli newspaper HaShavua. Dunno if it's true but reflects my personal experiences with Chareidi responses to "questions of emuna."

If someone feels like translating the whole thing by all means, but the gist of it is something like this:

Three Yeshiva drop outs/OTDs (not sure which) were brought to Rav Chaim Kanievsky in an attempt to bring them back to the "straight path". Rav Chaim asked the kids what had caused them to veer from "the derech". They answered that they had certain questions of faith which were bothering them greatly and they proceeded to explain their specific problems. Rav Chaim listened and then simply gave them a beracha.

One of the kids peeped up and asked Rav Chaim why he had not answered their questions. Rav Chaim quoted the Brisker Rav and said "I answer questions not excuses" He turned to the three kids and explained:

"You have decided to be porek ol, since you did not control your yetzer haras, and you found an excuse that you had 'questions', and I don't answer excuses!"

He gave them another beracha that they would merit teshuva shelema

How fortunate are we to have such amazing Gedolim!!!

Here's the original article in Hebrew, click to enlarge:

History is Textual

2010-11-10T06:24:00.000-05:00

Was the Zohar written by Rabbi Shimon Bar Yochai in the Tannaitic Era? Were the laws and practices of the "Torah She B'al Peh" in existence before the Tannaitic Literature. Did Jews always believe in an afterlife and a resurrection of the dead? And was God always understood as the unknowable, incorporeal God of Maimonides?

These questions and similar ones about ideas and beliefs in the ancient past can only be measured "scientifically" and historically in one way. Through writing. We simply have no other comparable way of checking what people were actually saying hundreds or thousands of years ago except by reading what writing these people left behind.

Of course this leaves a huge gap in our knowledge of historical time periods when writing was not as widespread as today but again it's all we really have.

So let's address for fun one of our examples. Did Jews always believe in a (meaningful) afterlife? All we can really say for sure is that the ideas of reward and punishment in Heaven and Hell only appear unambiguously in Jewish writings at a relatively late stage of Jewish history. Does the absence of (explicit) mention in earlier texts completely rule out the possibility that Jews always believed in such an afterlife? Not necessarily and it is always possible that by some fluke or "conspiracy" nobody bothered to make a passing mention of certain fundamental concepts of Judaism that feature so frequently in later Talmudic literature. Anything is possible.

But if we are to be historians we have to deal with the written data available to us and the data, by omission, rules out the this assumption. Again our data may be faulty. We might have lost a crucial text here or there which would have painted us a completely different picture. Nevertheless history like other more exact sciences can only deal with "observable" data.

So if you wish to assert that the Zohar was around for hundreds of years (despite no reference to it before the 13th century) or that Jews always keep the 39 melachot of Shabbat (despite no mention of them in the Tanach) I can't prove you wrong. But on the other hand if you assert things like this you're not being a "historian" and if you write that Ancient Hebrews wore tefillin and shook lulavim you're not writing history - just pure speculation - which is, at best based, on faith.

Have your faith. But don't call it history.

Prayer

2010-11-08T18:24:00.001-05:00

First I prayed for faith. What else could I pray for? So I prayed and prayed for God to grant me faith in his existence and lo and behold my prayers were not answered. I was naively hurt by the deafening silence to my heartfelt begging. Why would God not grant me something that was a mitzva? I wasn't praying for selfish things like wealth or happiness I was simply asking to be able to fulfill the "constant mitzva" of Anochi Hashem.

I don't pray anymore. Sure I say the words and hum the tunes occasionally but not as supplications. I chant them as beautiful poems and songs.

Does it hurt to pray? I'm not quite sure. Sometimes I'm tempted in times of distress to say a benediction or two but then I realize that it's probably about as efficacious as frantically drawing circles or clapping hands. I think a certain level of maturity is involved when you start dealing with your problems by yourself. Instead of trying to get help from an elusive deity perhaps it's better to accept the challenges of life and deal with them alone. It's hard sometimes to accept that no judge or advocate is out there to set things straight or to catch you when you fall. But it's certainly more realistic.

Perhaps we need to stop taking the soothing drugs of prayer and face the world sober and level-headed even if the challenges of the world seem insurmountable at times.

Of course a L'chaim once in a while never hurts and I guess neither does a prayer here and there....

It's Not About Science

2010-11-01T11:10:00.000-04:00

Stating the obvious but...

Young Earth Creationism is not scientific. Not just because it's wrong but also because it's not primarily trying to appeal to science when it claims that the Earth and the universe are not as old as they seem. Rabbi Slifkin in his recent "disagreements" with Dr. Betech has taken a rather reasonable approach as far as refusing to engage in a scientific debate since the problem is not really about science.

Young Earth Creationists make pseudo-scientific arguments. But this is just a red herring. Ultimately it all boils down to the fact that they respect the authority of scripture and in Judaism the authority of "Daat Torah" and Chazal more than the results of scientific inquiry. In an earlier post about the Documentary Hypothesis I noted a similar phenomenon i.e. that opponents of the Documentary Hypothesis have no problem dipping their feet into both camps - criticizing the literary methods of the DH'ers on one hand (with Cassuto's help) and appealing to the special ineffable, Godly nature of the Pentateuch on the other hand. YEC's often (but not always) engage in similar behavior asserting the authority of scripture and revelation over science but not shying away from "beating the scientists at their own game" by engaging in pseudo-scientific arguments. Ultimately, though, I think we can assert with some confidence that YEC's are not basing their views on "science" as much as they are being motivated by the infallibility of Chazal/Torah.

At the end of the day it's pretty hard for an Orthodox Jew to argue with YEC's since one has to tie one's hand behind one's back and admit that the Torah is the word of God. The best you can do is show HOW there are methods of interpreting the Torah less literally or appeal to the authority of Rishonim and Achronim who held similar views. But as I've said before either way you look at it, God was a little misleading somewhere - either when he wrote the Torah so obscurely or when he created the world to look like it was older than it was. And how exactly can you or me or anyone determine which of the two sources of truth should be the one to be "taken non-literally"? At best all one can show is that there is a long tradition of people who didn't take the Torah literally or that believing in science over a literal reading of the Torah is not kefira. But I don't think there really is any good way of saying to the YEC's "you are wrong and I am right and this is why!"

Ela Mai? The only real way to be machria the problem once and for all is to demonstrate, by appealing to the simple lack of evidence, that the Torah is not the explicit word of God and is not a source of truth comparable to science. The Torah is, as far as we know, just a book like all other books written by humans - trying to figure out the answers to life, the universe, and everything.

Learning Rashi On Chumash

2010-10-26T12:20:00.000-04:00

I have to wonder about what effects the teaching of Rashi as THE PESHAT of the Chumash, has on Jewish Elementary School children . Even in "Modern Orthodox" day schools Chumash is learned primarily with Rashi. Using what I would call a Midrashic or even "magical" "anti-rationalist" commentary as the basis of basic Chumash classes is perhaps the worst way to bring up Jewish children in the spirit of what I perceive to be the Modern Orthodox ideal i.e. a rationalist approach to Judaism. Whether such an approach to Judaism is "good" or even possible is not the issue. The point I'm trying to get at is do Modern Orthodox schools defeat their own purposes by teaching Chumash with the traditional commentary of Rashi?

Rashi's commentary is what I would call (anachronistically) a very Chareidi approach to the Torah. The Biblical world of Rashi is a place full of magic and miracles. At every turn small but numerous deviations from nature occur. Dark magic is a reality. Roads are shrunk to facilitate long journeys. Angels regularly hang out in the houses of the Avot and serve as messengers for them. In short Rashi creates the image of a veritable fantasy world straight out of the pages of the most imaginative fantasy novel. Whether or not Rashi or the original writers of the midrashim he quotes intended these strange additions to the Chumash as literal is irrelevant. A seven year old child imbibes these stories in his/her youth in a serious school class and cannot but help but internalize them to some extent.

If these children continue with their Jewish studies they might stumble upon a more rationalist or "pashtan" approach to the Chumash such as the Rambam, Ibn Ezra, or Rashbam. Nevertheless I feel that most Orthodox Jews today look at the Torah through the whimsical lens of the first Biblical commentary they learned.

Is this really how Modern Orthodox schools want to educate their children and how much of an effect does Rashi have on Orthodox Jewish education and perceptions of what Judaism is?

From a more "secular" perspective (and this applies equally to the way Gemara is taught in Yeshivot) is it a good idea to teach children that a given text doesn't really mean what it says? Is this the best way to educate children, by instructing them to not actually read the Chumash but to understand it through someone else's ideas? Of course all of Rabbinic Judaism suffers somewhat from this problem but I can't help but think that Rashi takes it to a farther level than the real pashtanim.

And Now For Something Completely Different: I just want to say that it drives me absolutely insane when people call the Ibn Ezra the Even Ezra (like the "Stone of Ezra"). I know that Jews in their dialect of Arabic probably didn't pronounce it exactly like "Ibn" and perhaps said it more like "Aven" but it's quite clear that a lot of people throwing the name "Even" around are just ignorant and think it's a fancy name for a commentary like " Or Hachayim" or "Kli Yakar".

The Akeda

2010-10-20T09:28:00.000-04:00

Theologically its problematic but only if you believe in an unchanging omniscient God.

The story is actually very clear. God want to test Avraham. He wants to find out if he is really dedicated to him. God presumably doesn't want the sacrifice just the willingness to do it. After the whole affair God says "NOW, I know that you fear God and you did not withhold your one son from me" It's only NOW that God knows the extent to which Avraham is willing to follow his commands clearly implying that before this it wasn't clear.

YHWH in this story is not omniscient. He doesn't know what the outcome of the trial will be if he did it wouldn't be a test would it? I understand completely that the classical commentators have dealt with this pressing issue but the fact remains that the story itself makes it clear that it was a "test" and that God learned something about Avraham from this test.

The God of the Pentateuch is not all knowing and unchanging. Many a time he is about to do something and (destroy Sedom, kill Bnei Yisrael in the midbar etc.) until a patriarch or prophet intervenes and makes an appeal.

The God of the Pentateuch is more of a celestial father than an invisible cosmic force. He has feelings and rages he can be appeased or angered. He can have mercy and control his anger. In short he's the kinda guy you can really relate to. He's like us just bigger, smarter and a great guy to have on your good side (but if you piss him off or happen to be a Canaanite hide!!!)

Who would you rather pray to? A celestial force which almost automatically bestows blessings on man like some sort of scientific law or like some sort of a computer, completely indifferent to anything and devoid of all feeling or personality. Or a God who loves, hates, cries, saves, and cares.

If I believed I would definitely pray to the latter. And let's be honest there is know logical reason to go with cosmic invisible force over cosmic invisible skyfather sitting on a big throne of clouds surrounded by winged angels. If you're gonna be "illogical" and go with religion I would recommend worshiping the God who is like us.

A Conversation

2010-10-18T14:45:00.000-04:00

(Real Abridged Conversation)

Shilton: Do you believe in the reliability of tradition for emotional or logical reasons?
Emuna: Logical I just disagree with your definition of logic
Shilton: Oh Really? How? Do you agree that we make certain axiomatic assumptions in logic?
Emuna: Yes.
Shilton: In other words we don't know anything is really true but we still make basic starting assumptions
Emuna: Yes.
Shilton: And How do we decide which axioms to assume? Surely it's the ones that correspond with our experience
Emuna: Okay... let's say
Shilton: Can you support your assumption that the Jewish tradition is a reliable source of truth by your experience? Have you ever seen empirically or by some other form of evidence that traditions are reliable?
Emuna: Well that's impossible I'd have to go all the way back to Sinai to actually see it.
Shilton: Argument from consequences... just 'cuz there is perhaps no way of meeting my demands of evidence doesn't make your position any better.
Emuna: No you see I disagree with your basic assertion that assumptions should correspond with observation
Shilton: So according to your method I could assert that this computer is really a flying pig. I've never observed it or seen any empirical evidence but Hell, you say we don't need any.
Emuna: Erm...

What I Want

2010-10-14T09:44:00.000-04:00

I like Judaism I just don't like it interfering with intellectual activities.

As a truth system, a means of salvation, or a worldview Judaism (and all religions) fail terribly. They just aren't true from a logical standpoint. If you have faith then good for you but unfortunately (or fortunately) for me when it comes to Judaism I have lost my faith. I no longer believe in the Jewish God or the divinity of his Torah.

Nevertheless I like Judaism in an emotional sense. I cannot, nor would I want to, escape the emotional hold Judaism has on my life. The rituals speak to me in a "national" sense, practices and prayers which are part of my heritage continue to give me emotional satisfaction. On Yom Kippur I get goosebumps during Netane Tokef when we cry about our unstable and transient existences, on Pesach I get shivers during the Kos Eliyahu when we incant "Pour out your wrath on the nations ... because they have consumed Yaakov" and think about the Jews who were (and still are) killed for being Jewish. Even the meaningless rituals like the shofar and the lulav somehow make me feel connected to my people who were, are and will be. I want to get out on the streets and scream with pride " I am a Jew!" but how can I shout that out sincerely if I don't maintain a cursory respect for the traditions which have so deeply affected and shaped the Jewish people.

But I want choice. I want to choose to keep Shabbat. I want to choose to light candles on Chanukkah to commemorate a thousand year old victory and a mythical but beautiful miracle. I don't want a God or a community to demand observance I want to have freedom to be a Jew as I see fit.

I don't want people to take the rituals too seriously. I don't want people expending hundreds of dollars on a "mehudar" etrog when a much cheaper one will do. I don't want people starving themselves because they forgot to do havdala or because they have not yet said Shacharit. I want Jewish observance in the same way Americans observe Thanksgiving or the Fourth of July. You keep the "holy days" and "rituals" (hotdogs, fireworks, turkey) but you don't kill yourself to make sacrifices if things aren't working out.

I want the good without the bad the beauty and depth of keeping age old practices, without the self-sacrifice and terrible inconvenience mandated by a dogmatic religion.

Memories...

2010-10-13T12:59:00.000-04:00

(No chiddush... just a place to vent )

There were those few years where I was terrified. I was scared to death that I was doing everything wrong and I was expending countless hours in the service of to the wrong God (assuming there really was one). I sat for hours reading books looking for "the answer" and for the magical solution which would allay my doubts and jettison me back into religious bliss. The years went by and I learned a lot about Judaism, much more than I would have known had I confined my reading to the strict Talmudic curriculum mandated by my Rabbis, but alas no answer became apparent and I was simply distraught. I prayed and cried during my tefilot. I prayed for belief, belief in an afterlife, belief in an existence with cosmic significance, belief in a God who I could lean on in times of distress and thank in times of joy. I looked around at the blind believers and burned with envy at their good fortune.

I thought a lot. I weighed arguments in my head building up grotesque theories and solutions and knocking them down one by one at a dizzying pace. Kuzari "proof", Torah codes and gematriot, kiruv seminars, I did them all. I remember the joy at discovering or reading a new "idea" and the distress every time I refuted it to the satisfaction of my logic but not my heart.

The years passed and I just stopped thinking about these issues. I got on with my Orthodox life more or less indifferently always stopping once in a while to shed a tear on Yom Kippur or other significant occasions. Unfortunately because I decided to "switch off my brain" I ended up making certain choices inspired by my old religious convictions which still affect my life today. But that's another story...

And then one night I stood outside in the early morning and for the hell of it decided to turn my thoughts back to Judaism. And I realized that I didn't care anymore, the deep convictions I had once had no longer haunted me and I finally said to myself "Shilton, what was was, you are free." And I stopped worrying and praying for the religion of my childhood and rejoiced in my new intellectual freedom. And all the regret and sadness and yearning for a faith which was beyond my grasp dissipated just like that and I now looked at those same blind believers with quiet pride that I had not just followed the flock but had been clever enough (or maybe just "lucky" enough) to think outside of the confines of Orthodoxy.

Very quickly this momentary happiness was shattered by the realization that I was Orthoprax and I began to wonder if it wasn't time to leave....

Busy....

2010-10-11T18:11:00.000-04:00

The creative juices are running low and I'm very busy at the moment.

Would anyone like to keep this blog interesting by contributing guest posts about anything related to Judaism or religious skepticism? Maybe this can become collaborative. This blog was too much fun to just abandon just like that ;-)

If you're interested just send me an email at shiltonhasechel@gmail.com.

The Line of Literalism

2010-10-03T21:29:00.000-04:00

Food for thought....

So you're a good Modern Orthodox Jew. You've read Rabbi Slifkin and other relatively progressive Orthodox books and you know that a 6 day creation and a world wide deluge is some sort of allegory - not to be taken literally - and definitely not a contradiction to science - because Genesis is not teaching us science. Period.

So you read through Bereishit you sail through Noach - all the time laughing at those dumb Charedim who are so backward and intransigent - unable to resolve the paltry difficulties of reading Genesis with scientific knowledge. Eventually you get to parshat Lech Lecha. Wait a sec? Is this also an allegory? After all Avraham is connected to Noach and even to Adam HaRishon genealogically. At no point is there a red flag that says "oy! time to start taking things literally again, we've left metaphor land and are on to the real historical, national narrative!" No break in the narrative at all.Is Avraham an allegory? Is Yitzchak not science or history but a "spiritual message"? What if we go a little further? Ma'amad Har Sinai! Is that not to be taken literally? The people who stood at Har Sinai are also genealogically linked to characters in "metaphorical narratives"....

True there isn't the same type of scientific evidence against the Avot and Exodus as there is against a literal Genesis but nevertheless one has to ask - when does the Torah leave the world of allegories and "spiritual truths" and enter the world of real historical facts? Where is the line dividing literalism from symbolism and Monotheistic "mashology"? Why is this line so invisible? An untrained eye reading Genesis will miss the line completely. And how do family trees seem to move so easily from the one side of the line to the other without the slightest break or interruption....

God and Obi Wan Kenobi

2010-09-28T20:35:00.000-04:00

Luke: Why didn't you tell me? You told me Vader betrayed and murdered my father.
Obi Wan: Your father was seduced by the Dark Side of the Force. He ceased to be Anakin Skywalker and became Darth Vader. When that happened, the good man who was your father was destroyed. So what I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke: (incredulous) A certain point of view?
Obi Wan: Luke, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.

Now there are basically two approaches one can take to this rather new-agey conversation.

1. Obi Wan has a strange habit of saying things in the most roundabout way as possible.Instead of saying "Oh you're dad's the arch villain" he decided to say "The arch villain killed your daddy". Luke was just dumb for not getting it.
2. Obi Wan lied and is covering it up.

Sooooo what does this have to do with God, the Torah and Israel?

Well if you take the whole Oral Torah thing really literally as the original intent of the text, (instead of a more a historical approach where the OT is a reinterpretation of the original intent of the text) you're going to end up with a God who talks a lot like Obi Wan Kenobi. i.e saying the opposite of what he really means. I figure the conversation between Moshe and God went something like this.

Moshe: Why didn't you tell me? You told me that we're supposed to eat Matza for seven days! Now you're telling me it's only really one??? You told me to lash people 40 times now you drop one for the hell of it???
God: What I told you was true... from a certain point of view.
Luke: (incredulous) A certain point of view?
God: Moshe, you're going to find that many of the truths we cling to depend greatly on our own point of view.
Moshe: Erm... what point of view would that be... ?

Random Sukkot Thoughts

2010-09-25T21:42:00.000-04:00

Maybe I just have a weird sense of humor but I thought it was pretty funny watching people struggling with lulav, etrog, and siddur during hoshanot. The less yeshivish folks just held the lulav and etrog in one hand and the siddur in the other while the more black hat types were very makpid to hold lulav in right, etrog in left, and somehow manage to balance a siddur on their outstretched arms.
Perusing an Artscroll Yomtov halacha book (*shudder*) and I noticed something interesting. When it comes to smoking on YomTov Artscroll mentions that part of the reason smoking may have been permitted back in the day on Yom Tov was because it was שווה לכל נפש (a luxury or habit which all people need/do/want) whereas nowadays most people don't smoke so perhaps the halacha nowadays would forbid smoking. But when it came to showering it just quoted a Mishna Berura (or some old source) which prohibited heating up water to bathe one's whole body because bathing everyday is not שווה לכל נפש Now maybe I'm just pampered but I think most people nowadays consider it normal to bathe daily so I'm not quite sure why Artscroll doesn't consider the possibility that nowadays daily bathing is considered שווה לכל נפש.

The possibilities:
1.Many Orthodox Jews still have 19th century hygiene habits. (*double shudder*)

2. You can only take changing circumstances into account halachically if it makes things stricter. But making things easier based on changing circumstances is evil Reform/Conservative/Liberal "innovation".

Or maybe I just missed something or am unfamiliar with the halachot. Very possible.

Kohelet is such an Un-Orthodox Book. I mean how much more skeptical can you get than this:

יח אָמַרְתִּי אֲנִי, בְּלִבִּי--עַל-דִּבְרַת בְּנֵי הָאָדָם, לְבָרָם הָאֱלֹהִים; וְלִרְאוֹת, שְׁהֶם-בְּהֵמָה הֵמָּה לָהֶם.	18 I said in my heart: 'It is because of the sons of men, that God may sift them, and that they may see that they themselves are but as beasts.'
יט כִּי מִקְרֶה בְנֵי-הָאָדָם וּמִקְרֶה הַבְּהֵמָה, וּמִקְרֶה אֶחָד לָהֶם--כְּמוֹת זֶה כֵּן מוֹת זֶה, וְרוּחַ אֶחָד לַכֹּל; וּמוֹתַר הָאָדָם מִן-הַבְּהֵמָה אָיִן, כִּי הַכֹּל הָבֶל.	19 For that which befalleth the sons of men befalleth beasts; even one thing befalleth them; as the one dieth, so dieth the other; yea, they have all one breath; so that man hath no pre-eminence above a beast; for all is vanity.
כ הַכֹּל הוֹלֵךְ, אֶל-מָקוֹם אֶחָד; הַכֹּל הָיָה מִן-הֶעָפָר, וְהַכֹּל שָׁב אֶל-הֶעָפָר.	20 All go unto one place; all are of the dust, and all return to dust.
כא מִי יוֹדֵעַ, רוּחַ בְּנֵי הָאָדָם--הָעֹלָה הִיא, לְמָעְלָה; וְרוּחַ, הַבְּהֵמָה--הַיֹּרֶדֶת הִיא, לְמַטָּה לָאָרֶץ.	21 Who knoweth the spirit of man whether it goeth upward, and the spirit of the beast whether it goeth downward to the earth?

Forget Evolution calling men monkeys! Kohelet calls man an animal! And says "they all end up the same"! And what is this "who knoweth" stuff about man's spirit going up to heaven!? Doesn't poor distraught Kohelet know about Olam HaBa!? If it weren't for the whole Sof Davar thing Kohelet could not have made it into the canon.

An Orthodox approach would be: A Rabbi once explained to me that Kohelet is sort of a parody of what man is like without religion. Basically the author made up this basically irreligious guy Kohelet and shows how depressed he is. The moral of the story is something akin to "Be Jewish or you'll be sad like Kohelet!" Very interesting idea. Kinda sounds like modern Orthodox propaganda about how awful it is to be not-frum/OTD.

A Thought About Weird Beliefs

2010-09-22T00:33:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time in my naiver days I listened to a Rabbi fulminate about how dumb Muslims were for believing that Mohammed road to heaven on a peacock-donkey something monstrosity. And I unfortunately found that amusing and laughed. I regret that laugh nowadays because I opened up my eyes eventually and realized that we Jews also look like a bunch of idiots to outside observers - talking about various miracles, talking donkeys, and other fun Rashi stories. The point is supernaturalism shouldn't really have degrees of weirdness - Mohammed going to heaven ain't any more weird than God freezing the sun in place for Yehoshua. Both are equally scientifically impossible.

At the end of the day it seems to boil down to "well my book says God froze the sun but nothing about Mohammed's celestial adventures so therefore my supernatural belief is true and yours is silly and laughable." The Muslims obviously invert the same exact argument.

So if you believe - at least have the intellectual honesty to laugh at all weird beliefs consistently (I guess with the knowledge that your belief in talking donkeys is inherently laughable but nevertheless true due to a Biblical revelation.) Or better yet don't laugh at all.

I was thinking about all of this because of the booming lemon business around this time of year. As Mis-nagid once put it (paraphrase, can't find original quote) "Silly Indians having raindances! Don't they know you're supposed to bring rain with a palm frond and a lemon!"

I wonder how the average Orthodox Jew would explain Lulav and Etrog to a non-Jew. "Um .. well you see.. it's not superstition or anything... it just .. um ... a way to ... um bring the rain in Israel. Plus the Torah says so!"
The same Orthodox Jew would probably go two seconds later and laugh at the dumb Christians eating Christ's body and blood as s/he munches on a sandwich which was prepared according to Ancient Near Eastern purity precepts.

Oh No!!! Innovation!!!

2010-09-20T15:05:00.000-04:00

Yup those Conservative Jews are at it again having the audacity to print "innovative" machzorim. Though some of the changes they apparently make are a little bit unnecessary IMHO (like a special Yizkor prayer for an abusive parent ??? though i dunno maybe there was big demand) I hardly see what the big deal is. As far as I can tell none of the pernicious changes are really halachically problematic (unless you think prayer is set in stone and can never be changed for whatever reason whatsoever on pain of death)

This is what R' Marlyles thinks:

One of the things that has kept Judaism alive during this long Diaspora is our commitment to tradition. That means that we do not change things based on the prevailing winds of the moment.

SH: I'll get to that in a moment.

Yes, there is such a thing as Hora’as Shah which can bring innovative change.

SH: What? How can a Hora'as Shaah bring (presumably permanent) innovative change? It's supposed to be a temporary measure it's supposed to disappear as soon as the situation changes.

But change was sparingly implemented over time by religious leaders of immense knowledge and only in circumstances when it became apparent that the very existence of Judaism was at stake.It was never about submitting to a spirit of the time that did not have existential overtones.

SH: Seriously? Do you think Judaism isn't at stake nowadays? By Orthodox standards we're in the most irreligious period in our history.Time to make concessions to some of those "misguided Jews" out there.

So Judaism never has historically "changed things to go with the wind of the moment"? Judaism has never made innovations?

Was it not innovation every time a Rabbi over the last two thousand years made a takkana ? (and no not every takkana was made by a universally recognized Beit Din) Or does that word "innovation" only mean "lenient innovation"?
Was it not going with the spirit of the times when Aristotlean and Neoplatonic philosophy was adopted in certain places during the Middle Ages as Jewish Theology?
Was Rabbenu Gershom's innovation to have only monogamous marriages not going with the spirit of the times?
Was translating the Torah into other languages besides the "divinely inspired Targum of Onkelos" not innovation. Was doing away with translating every Torah verse in shul as in Mishnaic times not innovation?
Was it not innovation when a new canonical work sprung into the Jewish world? - the Zohar. Was it not innovation when new Kabbalistic practices, prayers, and "kavvanot" were added to the liturgy and daily practice (kapparot, tashlich, tikkun chatzot, tikkun leil, Kabbalat Shabbat, etc.)
I guess the Chassidim who comprised a huge amount of pre-war European Jewry were "not really Jewish" because they innovated a lot and even were (and still are) lenient about prayer times.
Hell, let's go further back: were writing and canonizing the Mishna and Gemara not innovations? Was canonizing the 24 books of the Tanach including much disputed ones like Kohelet and Yechezkel not innovation? (I guess people with Ruach Hakodesh can make innovations but not us mere mortals)
Was new ways of interpreting the Torah not innovation? Was the expansion from 7 exegetical rules to 13 to 32 not innovation? Was Rabbi Akiva who's lectures supposedly stumped even Moshe Rabbenu (through time travel of course) an innovator?
Was the Babylonian Holiday of Simchat Torah which was subsequently accepted by all of Jewry not innovation?
Was Ezra's changing of the Torah script from Ivrit to Ashurit (or restoration according Chareidim) not innovation?

And the list goes on.......

I hardly think most of the above innovations were absolutely vital for the survival of the Jewish people.

Judaism like every other religion changes. There have always been innovators (and there have also always been reactionaries.) Orthodoxy likes to pretend otherwise. But the history speaks for itself. Which is why Jewish History is such a little known topic in most Orthodox minds.

Orthodoxy nowadays is in many ways similar to the people who railed against the Rambam, the people who mouthed off at the mekubalim, and the people who bashed the Besht.

Poor Empedocles

2010-09-18T22:26:00.004-04:00

I guess the meritorious practice of quoting people doesn't apply to goyim. The reason there has been no Geula yet (besides too many women wearing short tight skirts) must be because no one will give poor Empedocles some credit!

Today a Rabbi gave a stupid drasha and waxed eloquently about about the four elements fire, water, air, and earth. Now I don't really object to that classification of the elements perse (despite the fact that it is obviously obsolete) but what reaaally bugs me is when Rabbis and people say "Judaism says that there are 4 elements etc." or the "Torah considers matter of consisting of four elements etc." NO! NO! NO!

The four elements are a completely non-Jewish concept. They are never mentioned anywhere in the Tanach (and I'm not sure if it's even in the Gemara but I could be wrong) and only snuck into Jewish literature from - yeah you guessed it the Greeks. In the time period when the Rabbis were writing it was considered established "science" that all matter consisted of those four elements. This was a completely Greek idea which was thought up by the Greek philosopher Empedocles HUNDREDS OF YEARS before the Mishna or Gemara were written. (Though Enuma Elish, apparently, does mention sea, earth, sky and wind but since the Torah was OBVIOUSLY not influenced by Baylonian mythology not really relevant) Furthermore Empedocles and other scholars using the idea took it very literally and considered water, air, fire, and earth the basic elementary materials of matter. (So none of this junk about "the four elements are mystical and spiritual") Nowadays we know Empedocles was wrong (open a chemistry book) and the prevailing atomic theory is more like the theory of Democritus.

So calling the four elements a "Jewish" or "Torah" idea is but another example of modern (modern only in the sense of happening to live in the modern era) Rabbis learning Gemara and Rishonim completely out of historical context (like Artscroll's Gemara notes) and concluding that Greek science which they read in the some Jewish text is in fact "Jewish science".

When will they ever learn....

Does God Write Ineffable Books or Do Germans Make Bad Literary Critics? (Orthodox Approaches to the Documentary Hypothesis)

2010-09-15T11:24:00.000-04:00

The way I see it there are two types of criticisms of The Documentary Hypothesis and Biblical criticism in general.(I'm not discussing HERE whether the arguments are valid or not)

1.Methodological Criticism

The one is a criticism of the basic methodology which is to say that the theory behind the Documentary Hypothesis is just wrong. Either it's because they misinterpret the evidence, or it's because their evidence is non-existent in the first place etc. etc. This was the approach of Umberto Cassuto, who though no believer in Orthodox TMS, criticized the methodology and assumptions underlying the specifics of the Graf-Wellhausen Hypothesis. The logical implication of this approach is that the DH methodology is complete rubbish (or partially rubbish) and can NEVER be applied to literature Biblical or otherwise.

This above approach is somewhat difficult because according to this "school", the question of DH or not is not (theoretically) one of religion vs. atheism or Right Wing Religion vs. Left Wing Religion. Rather the question is purely one of literary criticism and is really one of bad literary criticism vs. good literary criticism. However we find that the fault line between the advocates of unified authorship and the advocates of single authorship almost invariably falls between Orthodox Jews and Right Wing Christians on the ones side and everyone else on the other which leads one to suspect that maybe this is a religious issue after all.

2. Epistemological Criticism

The other approach used to reject the DH is that the methodology is certainly sound but has unfortunately been misapplied. In other words were the Torah a natural man-made text then the advocates of the DH would be right. However the Torah is supernatural, a book revealed by God to Moshe and cannot be dissected with the same tools used on human works of literature. Mordechai Breur tried to turn this approach into an entire new methodology while most apologists merely comment (usually with little further explanation) that God cannot be expected to write books in the same way as man and his "writing style" is just as unknowable as him.

This harks back to the (primarily Christian) Medieval Averroist idea of the double truth. The double truth asserts in one way or another that naturalism and science (in those days Aristotleanism) definitively tell us one thing about God and the universe (e.g. that the universe is coeternal with God). In that respect a naturalistic methodology is correct. However there is another source of truth i.e. revelation or faith that gives us another view of the world. In other words one "knows" one thing as a philosopher and another as a man/woman of faith. In the case of the DH, as literary critics the DH'ers are correct, but we as Orthodox Jews know through supernatural revelation that the normal rules of literary analysis do not apply here because men didn't write this book the supernatural God did. אין כל חדש תחת השמש

(One little problem with this methodology BTW is that it can easily be modified to reject evolution or old Earth. If literary critics are right according to "science" and wrong according to revelation then why can't scientists be right according to science and wrong according to revelation/)

3. Now What?

I just want to end by making a point about the state of modern Orthodox apologetics about this critical issue. It seems to me that some Orthodox apologists kind of want to keep their feet in both camps. People who criticize the methodology of the DH often at the same time criticize the very use of methodological naturalism on the Torah. (e.g. Dovid Gottlieb here bringing both views )

Any Orthodox person who goes solely with the second approach really should admit that the DH'ers were right from a literary point of view and should STOP being so disparaging of Bible Criticism. Rejecting the DH'ers methodologically AND epistemologically is completely superfluous. I suppose it's theoretically possible that the DH'ers are wrong on two counts but it looks a bit fishy when a lot of people adopts two arguments with nothing in common except the result which just happens to be a result which is a required belief of an Orthodox Jew.

What do you think?

Will The Internet Affect Orthodoxy?

2010-09-14T13:16:00.001-04:00

I'm not really sure.

I imagine that a large part of people's ability to cling onto strange or untenable beliefs is due to lack of information. Back in the day it was far more unlikely for an average Orthodox person to even hear about the Documentary Hypothesis or Babylonian myths etc. unless s/he was one avid reader or had a particular interest in potentially controversial fields.

Nowadays with the information explosion of the twenty first century things are a lot more accessible. An unwitting internet surfer can get caught in a chain of links easily leading to "heretical" material. (Many people stumble upon this blog by googling such innocuous things as "Ktiva V'Chatima Tova" or "Rambam" as well as some really strange irrelevant things like "narcissistic personality disorder") As I overheard a Kollel guy once say "You watch youtube! But how? You could click on link which leads to another link which might make you watch something assur chas v'shalom!" Chareidim aren't just afraid of the prostkeit on the internet, they're afraid of the information.

But let's be honest how much of a difference will availability make. Firstly I imagine most people Jewish and not are spending most of their internet time Facebooking and Twittering not on Wikipedia. Most people couldn't be bothered by the intricacies of theology, science, history or even current events. So I think it's very possible that the availability of information will hardly be utilized except by the handful of inquisitive souls out there. I'm sure some people might stumble upon heresy, but I doubt most would be interested enough to even read a page without tweets or status updates (or Youtube videos of sneezing pandas)

Secondly many Orthodox Jews still have the religious gag reflex - where they instinctively flee from heretical ideas or alternatively automatically dismiss anything not written by a Rabbi. "Oh an article about the Bible looks interesting. Oh wait! It's written by a guy with a goyishe name and uses the word Pentateuch must be rubbish!" *click exit* Many Orthodox Jews learn that there are two types of information out there correct ideas (things which are in harmony with Orthodoxy) and incorrect ideas (things which are not in harmony with Orthodoxy) and will soon gain an instinct to determine the difference between the two and learn to throw the former into the mental dust bin. The religious gag reflex if properly functioning can make people impervious to any perceived assualts on their faith. (My "downfall" I assume was an under-developed religious gag reflex)

The above is of course pure speculation as I hardly can expect to fully understand the psychology of the Jew on the street but that's my tentative thoughts on the matter.

Although I don't think one can deny that the internet is corrupting more people with "outside" ideas than libraries ever did, I have to wonder if it will ever be able to effect a revolution in Orthodox Jewish thought.

Truth?

2010-09-13T08:48:00.000-04:00

Once upon a time in Yeshiva I shared with a fellow bochur an Avraham Ben HaRambam that said that the Rabbis in the Gemara should not be taken literally (horrors!) I was subsequently reported for this inappropriate behavior. When I appealed to the authority of the Rambam and his son the Rosh Yeshiva said to me rather frankly "A Yeshiva is not a place to find philosophical truth, it is a place to cultivate Yiros Hashem (fear of God). What you're doing although it may be true has the possibility of shterring (ruining) people's Yiros Hashem."

I can't say that all Rabbis agree with this but that basically sums up the whole Chareidi position which wants to forget (or rewrite) Jewish History, Jewish Philosophy and anything besides the Babylonian Talmud. Truth is perhaps not always their primary goal.

It also would sure explain why Kiruv movements bend the truth (perhaps even intentionally) The truth is not as important as fearing God, THAT is what matters and if you can get someone to fear God and keep his Torah then the ends justify the means. Whether you were honest or not doesn't quite matter because at the end of the day this person who you were mekarev through dishonest methods is now going to Gan Eden. S/he will in the Oilam HaEmes (the "true" world) thank you for your dishonest tactics.

5 Steps To A Guaranteed Ketiva V'Chatima Tova!

2010-09-08T12:39:00.000-04:00

Warning: this is highly irreverent and mocks Jewish traditions from time immemorial and probably is not the best thing to be writing before Rosh HaShana and probably isn't very funny. Don't read this if those kind of things offend you (and I ask for your forgiveness in advance.) Thank you! Shana Tova!

It's hard getting forgiven by the aybershte. I mean he is fairly demanding, and how exactly can we INSURE that he doesn't strike us with lightning next year!? Luckily for us Jews we have some sure fire ways of tipping the scales of divine judgment. Let's take a look.

1. Crying.

Apparently your prayers get extra points if you turn on the water works. But let's be honest you (the proste minuval that you are) just aren't stirred up enough to get those tears flowing. Luckily there's an easy solution. Fake it! That's right. The angels collecting your tears don't know if you're sincere or not so might as well give 'em something. Pinch yourself if you have to. Loud sobs are also a great idea - nothing says "I'm sorry, God" like pissing off the whole congregation with obnoxious loud yelps and making constipated faces. And if you're a chazzan - as a shaliach tzibbur you have an EXTRA obligation to sob in the middle of prayers (but just a word of advice even the angels aren't gonna fall for it if you continue where you left off before the sob without the slightest crack in your voice. Cummon make it a little bit convincing)

2. Simanim

Simanim aren't just tasty they're magical! That's right. If you eat some honey then the your gezeira for a sweet new year becomes guaranteed! (Take that you "rationalists"!) So be sure to scarf down as many simanim as possible! More simanim = more chances that you cast an effective spell. (A Kosher Torah spell BTW not a goyishe Harry Potter kishuf spell) Learn from the sefardim! Gather up animals and vegetables from all corners of the earth! And be SURE to stay away from nuts! The Gematria of the Hebrew word for nut - egoz is ALMOST the same gematria as sin - chet. And don't even dare listen to those scoffers who say that it's nuts who come up with these gematriot in the first place - they're just a buncha minuvalim who are also skeptical of Bible Codes and other Ohr Sameach approved word games. Are you really gonna listen to idiots like that?

3. Feed the Fish

You got all these sins sticking on to you where you gonna throw 'em? (Sins are REAL spiritual/metaphysical/immaterial/impure particles sticking to our neshamos so STOP rolling you eyes. If we could take an Xray of your neshama it would probably look like the lungs of a Lakewood Yeshiva Buchur) In the times of the Beit HaMikdash we had a scapegoat who got loaded with all our sins and was kicked off a mountain. Nebach we no longer have the ability to kill large amounts of animals ritually so we have to do the next best thing... KILL THE FISH. First make sure to empty out all your pockets to get all those nasty sins into the water and while you're at it try to coerce your millions of zera levatala demons (yeah don't pretend you haven't already spawned an army of those buggers) to join the fish also. THEN watch the fish gobble up you invisible sins. THEN swoop in and deal those fish a fatal blow with moldy challa crumbs. BOOM fish and sins gone.

4. Go To The Mikva

Yeah, yeah, you don't want to run around naked in front of a buncha hairy old men and fat chassidim but that's just because you have "Western sensibilities" and hopefully the waters of the holy mikva will manage to get rid of those also. Just be sure to to let your feet touch the ground! Everyone knows that the unholiness surrounding your spiritual neshama will not dissipate unless every inch of your body is touched by rain water warmed by human bodies and afloat with human hair. (Oh and those folks peeking at you are upright menschen and respected members of the community! So stop talking loshon horo about them right before Rosh HaShana!)

5. Say Hatarat Nedarim

Wouldn't want you going into Rosh HaShana with some unfulfilled oaths. What you haven't made any oaths? Well too bad! Say it anyway! In fact say it twice for being such a smart allack. It's in the siddur for God's sake, you can't just skip it!

With this arsenal you're guaranteed a perfect year! In fact I'll prove it: My friend once did all of these things and he didn't die the next year AND he got a raise at work! What more evidence do you need?

Ktiva V'Chatima Tova!

My Rant About Kiruv Organizations

2010-09-07T17:01:00.000-04:00

Kiruv organizations are EEEEEVIL! (Prepare for a rant!)

Ok not quite evil .I'm sure they're a little somewhere under Erev Rosh HaShana Selichot and fake crying on Yom Kippur but definitely up there with the top 10 evils of Orthodoxy. (hey that can be my next post!)

Listen! If you want to show someone how great a Shabbat can be with an awesome cholent and some stirring zemirot then by all means. Because all of that isn't a lie. Shabbat CAN be "uplifting" being Jewish CAN be fun. Some people even enjoy being Chareidi and to that I say good for you! and if a kiruv organization sets up a situation where non-affiliated Jews can experience some of these things and perhaps get in touch with their heritage - then even better!!!

But lying!!!!??? The Kuzari "Proof"??? The "Chazal knew some science"??? The Torah Codes??? Cummon!!! I dunno if Aish HaTorah, Ohr Sameach and their wacky lecturers know they're full of it or not (Gottlieb seems to think he's a genius, or should I define "thinking you're a genius" with a cute acronym TYAG and say Gottlieb = TYAG) but SOMEONE has got to tell 'em to shut it. Not just frum skeptics should be up in arms against this but even Ma'aminim Bnei Ma'aminim have to say "hey guys let's keep the recruiting Kosher"

The pseudo-proofs of Judaism not only are complete logical crap but also can ruin people down the rode. If you sign up for Judaism because of an Aish HaTorah Discovery Seminar then it won't take much for you to "open up you eyes" and regret 10 kids later what you've done. I dunno how many people they hook with their "scientific" mumbo jumbo but ANYONE convinced by that stuff is being terribly MANIPULATED.

Talking about manipulation, Kiruv Organizations should not be using marketing strategies. Sure if you're selling a vacuum it's bad marketing to mention that it's gonna die a day or so after the warranty - but this is something worse than a vacuum these are PEOPLE's lives. What do I mean by marketing strategy? Well, if a a non-frum girl goes and ask an Aish Hatorah guy what the status of woman is in Judaism he's not gonna whip out those delightfully backwards Gemarot which say tons of sexist things. Nope! Not even going to mention that a woman is considered in the Gemara too "crafty" to learn Torah, and too unreliable to be a witness. Kiruv Organizations sugar coat all the rough bits of Judaism and shelter their adherents from them until waaaay too late. THAT is pure manipulation - taking advantage of someone's ignorance about Judaism in order to only present the "fun" bits.

Be honest! I want every Kiruv Organization to be HONEST. If someones ask the Rabbi "Hey Rabbi what does the Gemara say about non-Jews" I want the Rabbi to say first "It thinks they're a bunch of donkeys with the emissions of horses" and only THEN make the excuses. I want the Rabbi to read all the demonology bits and read some choice Biblical passages about stoning and genocide. Go ahead! Present all the nice bits too BUT make sure to honestly present the good and the bad EQUALLY. If you lose "souls" 'cuz of you're brutal honesty then at least you know you're not lying to people.

Kiruv Organizations are either full of really dumb people (who actually believe in the Kuzari Proof) or have no problem using underhanded, Machiavellian tactics - as long as it will add another Orthodox Jew to the ranks.

It makes me sick.

The Yahwist Creation and Flood Narratives

2010-09-05T17:02:00.002-04:00

Warning this video is highly irreverent watch at your own risk!

In our last DH post we listed the linguistic features of the Patriarchal blessing which use the name YHWH. Now let's look at the bits of creation and the flood which use the name YHWH and see if we can find any linguistic characteristics.

The first creation account was Gen1:1-2:3. Then the Torah starts over and retells how plants, man, and animals were created. Then comes the story of the "fall of man" with the talking snake. These two stories both discussing the Garden of Eden comprise one distinct narrative. The whole thing 2:4-3:24 always uses a unique double divine name of YHWH-Elohim. (I'm not sure how the DH explains that phenomenon if at all)

Anyway notice the following linguistic features.(HT:LF)

The word Anokhi for I. (3:10, 4:9)
The word Adama for ground is VERY frequently used (2:5, 2:6, 2:7, 2:9, 2:19, 3:17, 3:19, 3:23, , 4:3, 4:10, 4:11, 4:12, 4:14) it is used ONLY ONCE in the first creation account (1:25) I will post separately about this later.
The Beast of the Field (2:19, 2:20, 3:1. 3:14) as opposed to the first creation narrative and the Elohist bits of the flood which call animals Beasts of the Earth (חית הארץ)

The DH'ers list some other words but they are far less frequent and can be attributed to coincidence but I will list them (erm... copy paste them) for completeness.

עֶצֶב v. sad
3:16, (twice)
טֶרֶם prep. before
Gen 2:5(twice)

Next let's look at the three definite Yahwist bits of the flood story. (6:1-8, 7:1-5, 8:20-22)

The word Adama keeps popping up again (but never with Elohim!) (6:1, 6:7, 7:4, 8:21)
God wipes out מחה mankind x2 (6:7, 7:4) instead of just destroying שחת them as in the Elohist sections
God is saddened/speaks to his heart אל לבו x2 (6:6 , 8:21)
The impulse of the heart of man is evil x2 ( כי יצר לב האדם רע (6:5, 8:21
God is generally described with a lot of anthropomorphism unlike when the name Elohim is used: God is sad, God regrets, God speaks to his heart, God smells, God closes the door etc.

Coming up: What do holy hand grenades have to do with the DH? How often is the word Adama used? What about the words Terem and Anokhi? What does the DH have to say about various genealogies? And what about all the other bits of Genesis using the name YHWH? And maybe after we've finished ALL OF THAT we can perhaps move onto Exodus! Stay tuned.

We All Like to Relive Our Journey

2010-09-04T21:05:00.003-04:00

I've been thinking...

A lot of us skeptic/kofer bloggers tend to focus on the things that started our "journey". Take me for example. For me the thing which started me thinking outside of the box was Biblical interpretation and Biblical criticism and how Orthodoxy interpreted the Bible differently than Karaites and modern literary analysts. It was the realization that there was definitely more than one way to read the Torah and my way was not necessarily the best one.

But that's just me. Take Yaron Yadan from Daat Emet. The thing which got him thinking was the conflict between Torah and Science something which never vaguely bothered me 'till late into my skepticism. Because this was his personal "spark", he tends to spend a lot of time focusing on that very thing which got him to doubt in the first place - going into great detail about how our Orthodox halachot are more or less based on faulty science. Even though by now he has experienced the full spectrum of religious doubt he still continues to spend a lot of time focusing on the things which got him started.

Other people focus on other things which "got them started". Whether it's the problem of Biblical morality or the ANE parallels to Biblical stories -we all have that one personal and unforgettable moment when the Pandora's Box was opened and our Weltanschauung began to unravel. I think we all sort of enshrine (or hate depending on one's attitude) the subjects that brought about those first steps outside of the world of Orthodox thought even though we have gone through the A-Z of heretical thinking.

Which is why I'll try to finish my DH series one of these days.

Questions of Purpose, questions of science

2010-09-02T20:00:00.000-04:00

I'll get back to DH'ing soon hopefully, (even though the stats seem to show that people got pretty bored of it)

Well the religious world has it's knickers in a bit of a knot (including Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks) because of Stephen Hawking's new book where he apparently says that there is no logical or scientific NEED for a God to explain the complexity or origin of the universe. This is a rather irksome development for the believers of the world as religious people have been throwing around Hawking's "know the mind of God" quote around for years in order to make an appeal to scientific authority.

The idea being thrown around now is the old slogan "Science tells us the Hows and Whats religion tells us the whys". This statement presupposes two things A. That why is a legitimate question to ask. and B. That positing the existence of God answers that question - as far as I can tell the religious answer to the "Why" is "Beats me but I think God has it sort of worked out"

Basically the answer which religion provides to the "Why" questions is to create someone else to know the answer.

Richard Dawkins recently engaged in an online chat debate with Ruth Gledhill, The Times religion correspondent. (Transcript here) Gledhill started up with the Hows and Whats vs. the Whys "One would be the the purpose of the universe. Although science might discover the mechanism, we are still left with the question of what is the purpose" Dawkins responded that there is no reason to assume that there is a purpose. There is no reason to assume on SCIENTIFIC or even LOGICAL grounds that there is any sort of teleology in the universe. (Emotionally speaking it's probably a good idea to wishfully think that there is some sort of purpose but THAT is not science or even a field of inquiry)

Dawkins makes another excellent point: The "God answers the Why questions" way of thinking is a bit of a cart before the horse. The question which we desperately need religion to answer is apparently "why is there a universe and more importantly why are there hairless quadrapeds with overactive imaginations" the believers are saying that the only answer to this question is "'cuz of God and his plans"

But wait a second! Purpose is something we generally ascribe to intelligence and intention. If someone has involuntary spasm we don't ask him/her "Why did you do that" because the action in question was not intentional. When there is no intentional agent behind an action we do not ascribe to it a purpose.

Similarly to ask "why is there a universe" is essentially to ask "Why did God make the universe". The question presupposes an intentional designer. But the question never starts if God is not in the picture! SOoooo basically to sum things up: according to the above line of reasoning religion is around to explain a problem it itself engenders.

"[Q]uestions that begin 'What is the purpose of . . .' require the existence of a purposeful agent."

Jehova, Jehova, Jehova!

2010-09-01T00:00:00.004-04:00

Any Excuse for some Monty Python ;) (Deuteronomy of Gath??? Lol)

If you're late to the party:

Okay we've looked at various passages using the name Elohim and shown the seemingly similar vocabulary between them. We dealt with two "genres" - the narrative genres of creation and the flood and the genre of God blessing Adam, Noach and the Patriarchs (the latter appeared in the former)

Let's start by looking at how God talks to the patriarchs when using the name YHWH.

Important: This may or may not be meaningful (more study required) but the word adama for ground, is found 3 times in the passages using the name Elohim (Gen 1:25 6:20 9:2)

Compare this to a superficial sampling of corresponding genres using the name YHWH (parts of the creation story using the name YHWH, the parts of Noach using YHWH, and the blessings of the patriarchs using YHWH) you come up with 2:5, 2:6, 2:7, 2:9, 2:19, 6:1, 6:7, 7:4, 7:8, 7:23, 8:21, 12:3, 28:14, 28:15 - 14X

Important: The word anokhi to mean I (as opposed to regular old Ani) NEVER appears in a passage using the name Elohim. However using the same sampling as adama above. We come up with 7:4, 15:1, 15:2, 15:4, 16:14, 16:8, 28:15, 28:16 - 8X

A. Genesis 12:1-3 God Tells Avraham to leave Canaan

וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ, כֹּל מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה. - And the families of the earth will be blessed through you
The word אֲדָמָה for ground

B. Genesis 13:14-18 God Tells Avraham that he gets to keep Canaan

"All the land that you see"
וְשַׂמְתִּי אֶת-זַרְעֲךָ, כַּעֲפַר הָאָרֶץ "Like the dust of the earth" - Theme of "uncountable" offspring
Building of an altar subsequent to revelation
North, South, East, West (28:14)

C. Genesis 15 Brit Bein HaBetarim

Simile of stars and offspring - Theme of "uncountable" offspring
אנכי Anokhi - I (15:1, 15:2, 15:4)

D. Genesis 16 An Angel of God speaks to Hagar in the wilderness

וְלֹא יִסָּפֵר, מֵרֹב - they will not be counted from size - Theme of "uncountable" offspring

E. Genesis 26:1-5 God Tells Yitzchak to Stay in Canaan

וְהִרְבֵּיתִי אֶת-זַרְעֲךָ, כְּכוֹכְבֵי הַשָּׁמַיִם Simile of stars and offspring - Theme of "uncountable" offspring
וְהִתְבָּרְכוּ בְזַרְעֲךָ, כֹּל גּוֹיֵי הָאָרֶץ And the nations of the earth will be blessed through your offspring

F. Genesis 28:12-15

וְהָיָה זַרְעֲךָ כַּעֲפַר הָאָרֶץ "Like the dust of the earth" - Theme of "uncountable" offspring
יָמָּה וָקֵדְמָה וְצָפֹנָה וָנֶגְבָּה West, East, North, South
וְנִבְרְכוּ בְךָ כָּל-מִשְׁפְּחֹת הָאֲדָמָה, וּבְזַרְעֶךָ - And the families of the earth will be blessed through you and your offspring
אנוכי Anokhi - I (28:15)
The word adama for ground (28:14)
Building of an altar subsequent to revelation

AND notice that none of the distinct terminology found in "Elohist" passages appears in any of these passages.

It would appear that we have two types of Patriarchal blessings. Each type using it's own terminology and style yet both types essentially saying the same thing: "You get Canaan, you'll have a lotta kids, and I think you guys generally are pretty cool"

Any words, phrases, or ideas I'm missing?

The next logical step is to compare these passages with the name YHWH to the parts of the creation and flood narrative using the name YHWH. But another time.

Quick Sum Up

2010-08-29T21:05:00.004-04:00

Time to sum up what we've learned so far with a fun pedantic list of words:

NOTE: This is not necessarily just a matter of genre. Yes, many of the words we will be quoting are words used in a repeated theme i.e. blessings from God to Adam, Noach and the Patriarchs. However, there are many other blessings to the patriarchs which do not exhibit the linguistic features below including but not limited to using the name YHWH.

Elohist (not E but P) Passages Using Similar Language In Genesis:

Genesis 1-2:4 First Creation Account

Peru U'Revu Be Fruitful and Multiply
Chayat Ha'aretz Animals of the Earth
Tzelem Elokim - Form of God
l-MIN-ehu - according to it's kind
The ground is generally called Eretz
L'ochla - to eat

Genesis 6:9-22 First Commandment to Noach

Kol Basar - All Flesh
Mashchit - Destroy
You, Your Children, Your Children's Wives
I Will Establish My Covenant
l-MIN-ehu - according to it's kind
L'ochla - to eat

Genesis 8:15-20 Noach Leaves the Ark

Peru U'Revu Be Fruitful and Multiply
You, Your Children, Your Children's Wives

Genesis 9:1-16 God Blesses Noach

Peru U'Revu Be Fruitful and Multiply
Chayat Ha'aretz Animals of the Earth
Tzelem Elokim - Form of God
I Will Establish My Covenant
Brit Olam -An eternal covenant
L'ochla - to eat
Kol Basar - All Flesh

Genesis 17 Avraham's Circumsision Pact

Use of the Peru U'revu verbs
El Shaddai
I Will Establish My Covenant
Brit Olam -An eternal covenant
A Father of a Multitude of Nations

Genesis 28:1-19 Yitzchak Sends Yaakov to Padan Aram (Quoting Above)

Use of the Peru U'Revu verbs
El Shaddai
I Will Establish My Covenant
A Father of a Multitude of Nations

Genesis 35:9-15 Yaakov's Blessing at Second Beit El

Peru U'Revu Be Fruitful and Multiply
El Shaddai
a Multitude of Nations

Genesis 48 Yaakov Blesses Yosef (Quoting Above)

Peru U'Revu Be Fruitful and Multiply
El Shaddai
a Multitude of Nations

Spoiler: This collection of verses sharing similar language and ideas is considered the P (Priestly) Source in the DH. We will hopefully soon see what it has to do with priests.

Flood Story Part 1

2010-08-29T11:10:00.001-04:00

Just Wondering: Does anyone know how to read little foxling's dead blog? Apparently he wrote extensively about the DH and I would love to read some of his material.

Read these first!:

DH Explained Part 1

DH Explained Part 2

We discussed in the last post some of the passages in Genesis which use the name Elohim exclusively. Among them we listed the first chapter of Bereishit - the creation story, and the first commandment to Noach (Genesis 7:13-22)

Let us begin by enumerating the passages in the flood story which use the name YHWH and the passages which use the name Elohim.

3 Elohim Passages, 3 YHWH passages, and one uncertain

YHWH: 6:1-8 God gets mad at mankind and decides to destroy them

Elohim: 6:9-32 Begins with the declaration "these are the generations of Noach" and continues with God's message to Noach. uses the name Elohim. Makes no distinction between pure and impure animals; we will pursue that in just a bit.

YHWH: 7:1-8 Second commandment to Noach; a distinction is made between "pure animals" and "impure animals" the name YHWH is used.

Uncertain: 7:9-8:15 The story of the flood. This large section rarely mentions God and we can only hypothesize about it based on our observations in more explicit sections. God is only mentioned 4 times, 3 as Elohim and once as YHWH.

Elohim: 8:16-20 God tells Noach to leave the ark; the name Elohim is used.

YHWH: 8:21-22 Noach brings a sacrifice and God is pleased; the name YHWH is used.

Elohim: 9:1-17 God's final covenant with Noach; the name Elohim is used.

If I haven't scared you off by that tedious list, it's time to examine some features of the flood story and see if they fit with our hypothesis. We will be looking at three things

1. The divine names
2. Phrases and words
3. Repetitions and/or contradictions.

We will be especially looking out for the "cluster effect" - do our three types of evidence cluster together? (AKA convergence of evidence) In other words will the divine name Elohim be found with the same sorts of words and phrases and YHWH will be found with the same sorts of words and phrases AND will these clusters of names and phrases correspond to passages that seem to contradict or repeat things - when faced with a repetition will one "version" have Elohim and "it's phrases" and will the other have YHWH and it's phrases. Let's take a look.

A. Vocabulary

The passages using the divine name Elohim differ in language and style from the ones using the name YHWH:

To list a few:

In the first chapter of Genesis (which always uses the name Elohim) constantly uses the phrase "animals; plants; birds - according to their kind" (e.g. 1:21) the flood story also uses this terminology in reference to animals. (6:21) Interestingly enough in a passage using the name Elohim.
Also notice the phrase "Btzelem Elokim" - "in the form of God", which itself uses the name Elohim; is used thrice in the first chapter of Genesis (1:26-27) (but not in the creation of man in Genesis 2) and again here (9:7) Both times used in an "Elohist" passage. YHWH never creates man "Btzelem Elokim".
Once again the phrases "be fruitful and multiply" and "I will establish my covenant" are used only in proximity to the name Elohim just like in G1, and G35. (Here 6:18, 9:1, 9:7, 9:9, and 9:11)
Referring to life as "all flesh" is always in passages using the name Elohim; (6:12, 13, 17, 19 etc.) this occurs only in the Elohim parts of the flood story. YHWH uses the rare word "Yekum" (7:4) and the phrase "all life" (8:21) to refer to the same idea.
Referring to animals as "the animals of the earth"; this occurs both in the first creation story (G1:25, 30) and in one of the Elohim parts of the flood story (G9:2, 10) Incidentally the second creation story using the name YHWH uses the phrase "animals of the field" which never appears in (our) Elohim sections.
The verb "LeShakhet" to destroy is always in close proximity to Elohim (e.g. 6:13, 8:15) (as opposed to the name YHWH which uses the verb -"Mechia" - wiping out. e.g. 7:4 )
The phrase "you, your children, and your children's wives" is always in close proximity to Elohim e.g. 6:18 (as opposed to YHWH which says "you and your house") (For some reason a random verse with this phrase is ascribed to J by the DH'ers, 7:7, I have no idea why!)
The phrase "because the heart of man is evil from his youth" is employed twice (G6:5 and G8:21) both times by YHWH.
The word "Mabul" - deluge or flood - is never used with the name YHWH only in proximity to the name Elohim.

B. Contradictions/Repetitions:

The two commands to Noach seem superfluous both essentially saying the same thing twice. With the one exception of pure and impure animals. This is our classic parallel - with two accounts similar but different + the linguistic features above.

The theme of the 7 of each species of kosher animals is never in proximity to the name Elohim. In God's first command (Elohim) to Noach no special difference is made for pure and impure animals. It merely says to bring two of each of everything. However in the second command (YHWH) 7 pure animals are to be brought. The theme of "pure animals" is continued after Noach leaves the ark and Noach makes animal sacrifices. His sacrifices are offered to YHWH.

Can traditional explanations explain these "two versions" of the flood story? Yes and they can explain how it's all really one story. However very few traditional explanations (at least ones I have seen, I would love to be pointed to new ones) take note of the distinguishing linguistic features immediately apparent in similar but different accounts.

In our next post we will examine the large passage telling the actual story of the flood 7:9-8:15. Stay tuned...

DH Explained Part II: The "Elohist"

2010-08-27T10:54:00.000-04:00

Continuing from here

We started with a hypothesis based on various contradictions between when and who was privy to God's name YHWH. The hypothesis so far is:

The accounts in Genesis where God eschews the name YHWH but instead tends to use the terminology EL-Shaddai and Elohim, represents a distinct literary unit, different in some way from AT LEAST the parts of Genesis where God is called either by himself or by the patriarch YHWH. This "literary unit" asserts that the patriarchs did not call God YHWH.

Once again this is but a hypothesis to explain the problem mentioned in the last post. A hypothesis needs evidence and that is what we are doing - examining the evidence (if any). In short: does Genesis and other parts of the Torah support our initial theory?

Let us start with Elohim. The hypothesis states that our "E author" eschews the name YHWH until God makes this "new" name known to Moshe. What passages in Genesis use the name Elohim without YHWH almost exclusively? (There are some passages where the names are alternated those will be dealt with later)

The most obvious "Elohist" passages are:

1) Genesis 1: The first creation account

2) Genesis 6:9-32 God's first commandment to Noach

3) Genesis 17 The Covenant of Circumcision (mentioned in last post; features El Shaddai)

4) Genesis 20 Avraham, Sarah, and Avimelech (this one is problematic because there is one mention of YHWH at the end)

5) Genesis 21:1-20 Hagar's second exile in the desert

6) Genesis 28:1-9 Yitzchak sends Yaakov to Padan Aram (El Shaddai is mentioned)

7) Genesis 35:9-15 Yaakov's revelation (mentioned in last; features El Shaddai)

8) Genesis 40-41 Yosef and Pharaoh (perhaps not conclusive because speaking to Egyptians, Yosef would use the more generic Elohim)

9) Genesis 48 Yaakov blesses Yosef (Yaakov quotes El Shaddai's blessing to him from 7.)

These are passages where the name YHWH is not mentioned at all (Except for once in 4.) These passages also comprise distinct "stories" with a clear beginning and end making it easy to "isolate" them for the purposes of our study.

Now let us make some observations here:

A. Couplets

Notice I put the word "first" and "second" in bold. I did this three times. 1. First Creation 2. First Commandment to Noach and 3. Second Exile of Hagar. These 3 stories are unique in that they have parallels. The first creation has a second creation (Genesis 2) and the first commandment to Noach has a second commandment to Noach (Genesis 7) and the second exile of Hagar vs. the first exile of Hagar (Genesis 16) (We could discuss the two Avimelech accounts also but I don't think they are very conclusive)

Isn't it interesting that these three similar yet different "couplets" have the conspicuous feature of using YHWH in one "couplet" and Elohim in the other. This is either a remarkable coincidence or an indication that PERHAPS that the usage of Elohim or YHWH indicates something more than just random changing of names (we will examine hopefully traditional explanations fort this clear phenomenon). It's not just that some passages say Elohim and other say YHWH but that similar yet different passages often follow this pattern. Interesting.

B. Fruitful and Multiply

We have two more instances of El Shaddai being associated with the blessings of "being fruitful and multiplying". (These instances are patriarchs quoting what El Shaddai told them previously, so Yitzchak in G28 repeats the blessing of Avraham, and Yaakov repeats his blessing to Yosef)

So far the following passages use this terminology: G28, G35, G48, (these 3 also all mention becoming a קהל גויים"a congregation of nations" G17 only says "I will make you very fruitful". To these we can add Genesis 1 which makes frequent use of the "fruitful and multiply" terminology (and provides Judaism with it's best mitzva) It is a remarkable coincidence that every time (so far) the Torah uses the litany of פרה ורבה it just HAPPENS to use the name Elohim or El Shaddai. Very interesting.

C. Another Couplet?

Item number 6) above where Yiztchak sends Yaakov to Padan Aram is preceded by the whole Yaakov and Eisav incident. In that incident the name YHWH was frequently used. In that account Yaakov literally flees for his life (on Rivka's advice) from his vengeful brother Eisav. Then for some reason Rivka starts complaining to Yitzchak that Eisav marrried a bunch of shiksas. So Yiztchak tells Yaakov to go to his uncle. I think we can say with some confidence that these represent similar but different accounts of why Yaakov left. Note the YHWHs in the first and the El Shaddai in the second. Extremely Interesting.

To Be Continued.....

The Documentary Hypothesis (Partly) Explained : Part 1

2010-08-26T10:44:00.004-04:00

I'm not necessarily saying the Documentary Hypothesis is accurate or correct on all points of Biblical authorship and I'm not even supporting the truth of the DH (right now). I also am not saying that the DH necessarily leads to denial of the divinity of the Torah or of Judaism. Those are discussion for other posts. All I want to do here is show what the DH actually says (as opposed to various strawmen used in many Orthodox apologetics) and what evidence it's supporters bring in it's favor. That's all. An Orthodox Jew should take a particular interest in this discussion , because IF s/he wishes to deal with various religious problems supposedly posed by the DH, s/he MUST have a complete understanding of what the DH really says. Attacking a straw man of the DH is just stupid and disingenuous.

Let us start with a common strawman that the Orthodox often use when discussing the DH:

The Documentary Hypothesis MERELY says that God is sometimes called YHWH and sometimes called Elohim and ASSUMES that that implies multiple authors.

A large part of the DH is based on the cycling between God being called YHWH and Elohim. That is true. However, it is not JUST based on the fact that this change occurs. Rather it is based on the similarities and differences between the narratives in which the names are changed.

It all starts with some curious verses in Shemot. (6:2)

ב וַיְדַבֵּר אֱלֹהִים, אֶל-מֹשֶׁה; וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו, אֲנִי יְהוָה. ג וָאֵרָא, אֶל-אַבְרָהָם אֶל-יִצְחָק וְאֶל-יַעֲקֹב--בְּאֵל שַׁדָּי; וּשְׁמִי יְהוָה, לֹא נוֹדַעְתִּי לָהֶם.

2 And God spoke unto Moses, and said unto him: 'I am the LORD; 3 and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob, as El Shaddai, but by My name YHWH I made Me not known to them.

Now these verses make a very interesting assertion. They say pretty explicitly that God never "made known" his name YHWH to the patriarchs. However the problem with this immediately apparent. As we all know God, in various places in Genesis in fact DOES reveal himself with the name YHWH and even sometimes uses the same terminology of "I am YHWH".

Edit: Examples:

Genesis 15:7
ז וַיֹּאמֶר, אֵלָיו: אֲנִי יְהוָה, אֲשֶׁר הוֹצֵאתִיךָ מֵאוּר כַּשְׂדִּים--לָתֶת לְךָ אֶת-הָאָרֶץ הַזֹּאת, לְרִשְׁתָּהּ

7 And He said unto him: 'I am YHWH that brought thee out of Ur of the Chaldees, to give thee this land to inherit it.'
.
Genesis 28:10
יב וַיַּחֲלֹם, וְהִנֵּה סֻלָּם מֻצָּב אַרְצָה, וְרֹאשׁוֹ, מַגִּיעַ הַשָּׁמָיְמָה; וְהִנֵּה מַלְאֲכֵי אֱלֹהִים, עֹלִים וְיֹרְדִים בּוֹ. יג וְהִנֵּה יְהוָה נִצָּב עָלָיו, וַיֹּאמַר,
אֲנִי יְהוָה אֱלֹהֵי אַבְרָהָם אָבִיךָ, וֵאלֹהֵי יִצְחָק; הָאָרֶץ, אֲשֶׁר אַתָּה שֹׁכֵב עָלֶיהָ--לְךָ אֶתְּנֶנָּה, וּלְזַרְעֶךָ.

12 And he dreamed, and behold a ladder set up on the earth, and the top of it reached to heaven; and behold the angels of Elohim ascending and descending on it. 13 And, behold, YHWH stood beside him, and said: 'I am YHWH, the God of Abraham thy father, and the God of Isaac. The land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give it, and to thy seed. 1

We could perhaps say that the narrative doesn't actually mean that the patriarchs did not know the name of YHWH at all. Perhaps they merely did not understand the MEANING or the IMPLICATIONS of the holy name. However there are certain passages in Genesis which seem to fit PERFECTLY with a literal interpretation of this passage in Exodus.

I am referring to two revelations one to Avraham and one to Yaakov let us take a look.

Genesis 17:1

א וַיְהִי אַבְרָם, בֶּן-תִּשְׁעִים שָׁנָה וְתֵשַׁע שָׁנִים; וַיֵּרָא יְהוָה אֶל-אַבְרָם, וַיֹּאמֶר אֵלָיו אֲנִי-אֵל שַׁדַּי--הִתְהַלֵּךְ לְפָנַי, וֶהְיֵה תָמִים

1 And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, YHWH appeared to Abram, and said unto him: 'I am El Shaddai; walk before Me, and be thou wholehearted.

and Genesis 35:9-11

ט וַיֵּרָא אֱלֹהִים אֶל-יַעֲקֹב עוֹד, בְּבֹאוֹ מִפַּדַּן אֲרָם; וַיְבָרֶךְ, אֹתוֹ. י וַיֹּאמֶר-לוֹ אֱלֹהִים, שִׁמְךָ יַעֲקֹב: לֹא-יִקָּרֵא שִׁמְךָ עוֹד יַעֲקֹב, כִּי אִם-יִשְׂרָאֵל יִהְיֶה שְׁמֶךָ, וַיִּקְרָא אֶת-שְׁמוֹ, יִשְׂרָאֵל. יא וַיֹּאמֶר לוֹ אֱלֹהִים אֲנִי אֵל שַׁדַּי, פְּרֵה וּרְבֵה--גּוֹי וּקְהַל גּוֹיִם, יִהְיֶה מִמֶּךָּ; וּמְלָכִים, מֵחֲלָצֶיךָ יֵצֵאוּ

9 And Elohim appeared unto Jacob again, when he came from Paddan-aram, and blessed him [....] 11 And Elohim said unto him: 'I am El Shaddai. Be fruitful and multiply; a nation and a company of nations shall be of thee, and kings shall come out of thy loins

In both these revelation God specifically refrains from using the name YHWH when talking to the patriarchs he ONLY, and let me stress that again, ONLY uses the words Elohim and El Shaddai when referring to himself. (In 17:1 the word YHWH is used to describe God in the third person but when he actually speaks he uses the other names exclusively never using the name YHWH again in the whole passage)

Isn't it interesting that on the one hand we have various accounts in Genesis where God seems to "break the rule" that he made in Exodus, while in other places he keeps the rule "religiously".

Let us make a hypothesis and at this point it is JUST a hypothesis. PERHAPS there are two versions of God's public relations policy with the patriarchs. PERHAPS we are looking at the writings of two different people both telling basically the same story but with slightly different details.

What kind of evidence would we need to substantiate this hypothesis?

Surely different writers would have different writing styles and use slightly different expressions. In theory we should be able to find some difference between the "literary style" of the supposed "E author" and the supposed "J author". (To use the terminology of the DH)

Assuming that Exodus 6, Genesis 17, and Genesis 35 comprise a distinct literary unit which is different than various other revelations employing the name YHWH there are indeed some unique stylistic features.

Some things G17 and G35 have in common:

1. Both bless the patriarchs with "kings coming from them"
2. Both discuss being fruitful and multiplying
3. In both of them "Elohim goes up" after he is done with his chat.
4. In both the names of Avram and Yaakov are changed to AvrAHam and Yisrael respectively

Some things G17, G35, and E6 have in common:

1. The use of El Shaddai (as mentioned)
2. The use of the term "And I will establish this covenant"

These similarities are interesting but far from conclusive (or even convincing at this point). We will have to further investigate Genesis to substantiate our hypothesis of TWO or more authors or documents and see if we can find any other evidence for this theory or if it is what many Orthodox call it - a "failed hypothesis".

To Be Continued.... (maybe)

Selective Skepticism

2010-08-25T09:28:00.005-04:00

First watch this video which I think rather nicely sums up the position of skeptics vs. religious believers. (HT: E-man)

Besides the monotone this is a great video! Should be required watching in yeshivot!

Anyway I also saw on eskeptic today (here) an interesting study comparing the beliefs of Wiccans and Creationists. The common factor, of course, between these two rather irrational types of thought is a certain suspension of skepticism in favor of either the inerrancy of the Bible or the existence of the supernatural and paranormal. However, and this is extremely interesting, creationists tend to eschew the paranormal and be highly skeptical of such popular beliefs like UFO's and the ability of psychics. (click to enlarge)
This is not exactly unexpected, because creationists are traditionalists and don't like new-fangled ideas, but it is nevertheless a completely unjustified approach to skepticism. You can't justify being completely skeptical about paranormal beliefs while on the other hand being completely accepting about equally unsubstantiated beliefs such as the inerrancy and divinity of the Bible.

These statistics essentially remind me of the attitude the Orthodox community has towards paranormal beliefs. Most Orthodox people I know are exceedingly skeptical of things like UFO's. They often roll their eyes and make comments about how bankrupt American religious life is that it forces people to believe in such nonsense. They often say such things like "everyone needs religion either it's God or UFO's".

Of course these same people who are so skeptical about the paranormal also believe that they have invisible souls which will somehow go to an invisible afterlife.

In our day and age many people are increasingly more skeptical. HOWEVER they are usually only skeptical of things not already within their accepted Weltanschauung.

The Boundaries of Faith Based Religion

2010-08-24T10:20:00.005-04:00

I'm a big fan of completely faith based religion.

If you truly believe, but at the same time you realize that your belief is not a logical decision but rather a matter of faith, upbringing, and environment then I think you have a pretty good position. I've said it before and I'll say it again - not everything we humans do is or even should be a matter of cold calculating. Irrational emotions, desires and impulses are IMHO just as important to the human experience as logic and rationality, and should take some part in our decision making.

(I'm not sure if such people exist; people who openly admit that they have zero logical basis for their faith; if they do they are a tiny minority of the world's believers)

There is however a fundamental difference between "rational" religion "(i.e. the belief that your religion can be demonstrated rationally) and emotional religion.

Rational religion claims to be based on logic. Logic or reasoning is generally considered an objective concept. The beliefs of a purportedly rational religion have an objective quality to them.

However "emotional" or romanticist religion is by definition a subjective belief.

Rational religion can demand that you not only do things yourself but that you also have a right to demand things of others. It is objectively wrong for a Jew to eat shellfish. Logic practically dictates that this is an egregious sin. Therefore it is my duty and right to try and prevent not only myself but other Jews from committing this terrible sin. Just think about how much of what Orthodox Jews (and other fundamentalists) do is based on the assumption that religion is a description of objective values and objective realities.

However in theory emotional religion demands that you restrict all your beliefs and feelings to yourself. What others do has nothing to do with you or your religion because your religion is faith-based - which is to say it is purely subjective. It exists within you heart but nowhere else. Carrying out subjective imperatives and imposing them on others just does not make any sense. It's like telling your friend not to go on the roller coaster because YOU happen to hate roller coasters. Or like telling a surgeon to leave the room because blood makes YOU queezy.

Who is to say that your subjective religion has the same existence or meaning to other people with different emotions, desires and upbringings?

It's Hard Being a Gadol

2010-08-23T11:50:00.002-04:00

This is just an idea.

It's a lot harder nowadays to become a "Gadol BaTorah" then it was back in the day. I mean take the Rambam, a fairly brilliant fellow. To get the status of a Gadol all he really needed to know was Tanakh and Shas. And that's it! (Maybe some geonim also) So yes, Shas is pretty big but it's not insurmountable. If you have a good memory you can probably get the whole thing down klor (I have not used that word in so long!) in 20 or 30 years. So you're done Shas and now what? Hey! Maybe a bit of Aristotle!

The point is for someone to have the status of a big macher in Torah nowadays you've gotta know LOTS of stuff. You need to know Shas, you need to know Shulchan Aruch, you need to know Rambam, you need to know Taz, Shach, Bach, Beit Yosef, Mishna Berura etc. etc. etc.

There is just so much Jewish legal writing out there nowadays that if you want to make it to the top you really cannot waste any time reading or doing anything else. Yes there are exceptions but I think it's virtually impossible nowadays for someone to have the automatic respect of the Orthodox world through sheer quantity of Torah knowledge, AND to have an in depth knowledge of non-Torah subjects.

And it's not just Torah that has grown. Science is also 100X more complex than the days of the Rambam. What did the Rambam have to know? Aristotle, Ibn Sina, Ibn Rushd and some Plato. Nowadays there is just SO MUCH more secular knowledge!

Perhaps there is such a paucity of true Rambams nowadays because Torah and science have just become too big for one person to be proficient in both.

Maybe.

Am I completely off here?

The Kuzari Proof: Quote and Links

2010-08-19T20:50:00.004-04:00

I don't even need to do the work it's been done for me ad nauseum over the last five years all over the internet. Before the list I want to add a quote from an amazing book I just finished called Historians' Fallacies by David Fischer. Anyone who thinks they can judge ancient psychology (which the Kuzari proof tries to do) by modern day standards is just deluding themselves and here is why.

The Fallacy of Universal Man: falsely assumes that people are intellectually and psychologically the same in all times, places and circumstances.... People, in various times, have not merely thought different things they have thought them differently.It is probable that their most fundamental cerebral processes have changed through time. Their deepest emotional drives and desires may themselves have been transformed. Significant elements of continuity cannot be understood without a sense of discontinuities too.

Blogs and Links Showing the Numerous Fallacies involved In the So Called Kuzari Proof.

1. From Wikipedia

2. The Sinai Argument by Shlomi Tal

From TalkReason

3. Dreaming Up... by Mark Perah

4. Critique of the Kuzari Argument by Avi Norowitz

5. Kuzari - The Principle and Formalism by David Yust

From Blogs

6. From DovBear: Demolishing Dumb Arguments

7. Pretty Much Every Post in Gideon Slifkin's old XGH blog (archive here, or just subscribe to Google Reader to access old posts)

8. From Textuality: Definitively Refuting the Kuzari Principle

9. From Martin C. Winer The Kuzari Proof - 3 Million Can Be Wrong

10. Posts From (Blogger) Orthoprax (Focusing On Other Mass Revelation Myths):

A. Going After Rabbi Gottlieb

B.The Milk Miracle

C.Buddha's Many Miracles

D.The Aztec's National Revelation

E.The Aztec's National Revelation II

F.The Mandan

11. Two More Mass Revelations

Any other good links to add? Folks there is a reason it's called the Kuzari proof. Because it wass thought up in the Middle Ages by Yehuda HaLevi in the Kuzari. The Middle Ages are over, we know a lot more about religion and history then Yehuda HaLevi. Time to move on.

Faith

2010-08-18T18:05:00.000-04:00

Note: Frummies, this post obviously assumes I'm right and you're wrong. If you want to know why I think that read my other posts.

What is faith?

Back when I was good card carrying member of Orthodoxy I had faith.

But that faith was nothing special from a religious point of view. It was merely ignorant of any other way of thinking. As soon as I found out that not everyone in the world thought like us I started asking questions.

But is there another kind of faith?

Can one feel a deep inner intuition that Orthodoxy is true and that God exists despite complete and full understanding that there is no logical evidence for these ideas? Indeed Rousseau (and his modern Jewish disciple A.J. Heschel) rejected rationalistic proofs of God (and religion) and tell us to but look at our hearts. But I wonder if these people believed (erroneously in my opinion) that the dictates of the heart have just as much authority as logic OR did they realize that their hearts can't really tell us anything about reality but decided to follow anyway because life isn't all about logic.

Or is the faith of most true believers merely ignorance? When I say ignorant I don't mean they've never heard of the things us skeptics talk about - though that is often the case. I mean they do not fully realize the real implications of the skeptics' claims. Perhaps due to their fervent belief they are unable to allow their reasoning to proceed to it's logical conclusion. A sort of mental road block. Perhaps with the aid of this barrier in the road they believe that they are holding onto a fully rational world view when in reality they are using faulty thinking guided by their preconceived views.

So to sum things up I can imagine four types of faith:

1. The Realistic Romanticists

Those who follow the dictates of their heart with full knowledge that their hearts can't really describe reality. (I can't really imagine anyone being really fervent this way but whatever I suppose its possible)

2. The Wishful Thinking Romanticists

Those who follow the dictates of their heart thinking that human instinct (in this case often the product of brainwashing) is just as good as logic

3. The Intellifundies

Those who think they are following reason but really aren't

4. The Sheltered/Hamon Am

(What I used to be) Those who don't think OR don't realize that there is an intellectual world outside of Orthodoxy.

(I think 3 and 4 are the majority of people, I have met a few lone 2s, and never met a 1)

Burden of Proof

2010-08-16T21:24:00.002-04:00

(Let me know if you're having trouble with the new Disqus comments and PLEASE use the Reply button)

Forget Bible criticism, forget philosophy, forget arguments AGAINST Judaism. I might have been approaching all of this completely wrong. I've been focusing on the peripheral issues and missing the big picture. We need to ask "prove it!" Let's begin by talking about the burden of proof (BOP).

Now BOP arguments often become silly and are usually not useful in a scientific or historical discussions. But in the case of religion vs. skepticism we absolutely need to establish who the BOP is on. Our options:

1. There are two sides to the argument and the BOP is on both sides

2. The BOP is on skepticism

3. The BOP is on religion

How do we decide? What is the rule (if any) that determines who the BOP is on? Let's discuss generalities first and then move onto the question at hand.

I'm sure right now some believer is smiling at my naivete. BOP on theism!? Don't I know that religion has been around for much longer than atheism. Stupid Shilton! Atheism, and Deism are the innovations. When someone says "I'm an atheist" S/He is surely like someone coming out of nowhere and saying Rav Elyashiv is the Mashiach! The BOP is on the innovative new atheism of the modern era!

This is faulty thinking and let me explain why. Atheism is indeed, relatively speaking a novel idea, however determining the BOP has nothing to do with comparing the ages of two contending ideas. It also has nothing to do with established norms or accepted ideas. The BOP does not follow chronology and does not care who came up with what first and how long people have been doing various things. To determine the BOP we must take two ideas forget the histories and biases behind each one and ask "Which one is making a positive assertion and which one is not." The BOP always lies on the unproven positive assertion NOT on the unproven negative assertion.

Positive assertions are the ones which must be proven. So take rain for example. The belief in the existence of rain is a positive assertion. You can't just assume it rains. You need to base it on something you need some sort of proof. In short the BOP initially is always on the person who wants to demonstrate the existence of rain. How do you prove it? Well you explain how many people have seen rain (including yourself), and how it is well documented, and how millions of independent sources from people who never met each other all make mention of it. Just a side point: Once you've proven rain then the BOP is obviously shifted, and it is then that the proof must be borne by the iconoclast who wishes to bring the reality of rain into question.

We start off knowing absolutely nothing and the BOP lies on everything, however once a proof or a well reasoned argument has been offered the BOP is on those who wish to now change things.

So back to religion. Religion is still stuck in the initial stages of doubt. It has never gotten off the ground. Initially at the beginning of a logical inquiry religion, rain, cars, keyboards, cats, physics, and Coca Cola are all in doubt and the BOP is on s/he who wants to prove them. The problem is religion fell behind in the race. We can reasonably prove the existence of rain, cats, cars, keyboards, physics and Coca Cola. Obviously it's not so easy (probably impossible) to escape a Cartesian doubt or prove we're not brains in jars but we can prove that in our world, whether that world be real or imaginary, that Coca Cola exists. But religion? Can you prove religion in the same way you can prove Coca Cola? Hell forget Coke! Can you prove religion in the same way you can prove the Earth is round?

It's not a specific bias against religion it's a requirement on EVERYTHING! Nothing is known 'till proven or demonstrated adequately. That's all skepticism is - requiring every positive assertion in the world - no exceptions - to prove itself. The Burden of proof is on Coke just a much as religion - the only difference is most things have overcome the challenge and fulfilled their duty of bearing the proof. Religion has for the most part failed and now would desperately like to be granted a special epistemological immunity just because it's really old and respected. Well no can do - stick to faith.

Skepticism is a negative assertion and says "I'll believe it when I see it" It needs not prove anything because it's not saying anything. It's just saying I don't believe in pink unicorns, religion, fairies, an afterlife, UFO's, and magic NOT because these things are impossible, but rather just because nobody can give me any reason WHY to believe in these things. When a skeptic makes a positive assertion then indeed s/he needs to cough up some proof or argument but denying religion in general is not a positive assertion.

If a real proof or argument for God in general, and Judaism in particular popped up then the skeptics would have to logically change their position and could no longer "hide" behind the Burden of Proof. Since that has not happened yet (AFAIK) and all Judaism has going for it are a bunch of pseudo-proofs which are opiates for the gullible masses , the skeptics still have the high ground.

Where To Begin?

2010-08-15T23:25:00.001-04:00

There are just so many problems with Orthodoxy that one often doesn't know where to start.

So if you, for some reason, had one chance to convince a believer to stop believing (why? beats me) what argument would you choose?

I guess I'm kind of wondering what the rational order of disbelief is. I mean if one had to completely deconstruct Orthodoxy "from scratch" where would one start? There are so many tantalizing issues.

Does one start from the top and talk about God, and the problem of evil?

Does one quote the rather cruel commandments that hopefully no benevolent God authored?

Does one cite the fact that God either lied through science or in the creation account?

Does one discuss critical Bible scholarship, the Ancient Near East, and archaeology?

Does one talk about the fact that humans wrote (or in this case spoke) the Torah She B'Al Peh?

Or does one just simply say "PROVE IT!"

Which skeptical discussions take logical precedence as the initial "underminers" of Orthodoxy and which ones only become meaningful after Orthodoxy has been rather thoroughly undermined? Some commenters said that my discussion about contradictions in the Torah (hmmm I need to finish that sometime) was not itself an underminer of Orthodoxy (because of TSBP apologetics etc.) but was rather something which one discusses only after having decided for other reasons that the Torah and Orthodoxy in general are not divine.

I dunno

What do y'all think?

If you had to explain it all to someone what would you start with and how would you proceed?

30 Dumb Proofs

2010-08-13T09:24:00.005-04:00

Someone a long time ago made a snarky list of dumb theist arguments. (Here) I suppose it's about time we do it for Judaism. It's a joke of course (so nobody get offended that I'm misconstruing things) but I have to say that everything I'm about to list I have literally heard (in some shape or form) from real people. It's actually pretty depressing (but still funny.) Anyway feel free to add and have a Shabbat Shalom!

1. Parents don't lie to their children. Therefore Judaism must be true

2. Only Judaism of the three Abrahmic religions had a mass revelation myth. Therefore Judaism must be true

3. The Torah says some crazy things that no human would write. Therefore Judaism must be true

4. The Gemara got some science sort of right. Therefore Judaism must be true

5. The Bible is an amazing book. Therefore Judaism must be true

6. The Gemara is an amazing book. Therefore Judaism must be true

7. Maimonides was smart. He believed in Judaism. Therefore Judaism must be true

8. Jews use less drugs and drink less alcohol then non-Jews. Therefore Judaism must be true

9. Orthodox Jews have a low divorce rate. Therefore Judaism must be true.

10. People died for Judaism. Therefore Judaism must be true.

11. If I treat the Torah as a crossword puzzle I can make after-the-fact prophecies. Therefore Judaism must be true.

12. The Torah says bad things will happen to the Jews. Bad thing happened to the Jews. Therefore Judaism must be true

13. The Jews are still around despite having a rough time. Therefore Judaism must be true

14. Logic and rationality are a load of crap. Therefore Judaism must be true

15. God must have a plan for man. The Torah is a plan for man. Therefore Judaism must be true

16. The Torah says the universe had a beginning. The Big Bang Theory says the universe had a beggining. Therefore Judaism must be true

17. A lot of bad things happened to the Jews specifically. This must mean God hates them specially. Therefore Judaism must be true

18. Some archaeology supports certain things in the Bible. Therefore Judaism must be true.

19. The Documentary Hypothesis is wrong. Therefore Judaism must be true

20. Science changes. We say Judaism never changes. Therefore Judaism must be true.

21. Learning Gemara is fun. Therefore Judaism must be true

22. Jews have an obligation to believe Judaism is true. Therefore Judaism must be true

23. Jews are smart. Therefore Judaism must be true

24. The Gemara and its commentaries take up tens of thousands of pages. Therefore Judaism must be true

25. State of Israel. Therefore Judaism must be true.

26. War of Independence, Mivtza Sinai, Six Day War, Yom Kippur War. Therefore Judaism must be true

27. "I have faith." Therefore Judaism must be true

28. "You're just as biased as me!" Therefore Judaism must be true

29. "If it was obvious we'd have no free choice" Therefore Judaism must be true

30. "If it was obvious everyone would become Jewish" Therefore Judaism must be true

31. "So and so got better when we davened for him/her" Therefore Judaism must be true

Okay it was 31 proofs. Can anyone think of anymore, this was fun. ;)

Gemara Logic

2010-08-11T22:01:00.003-04:00

I've been wondering if learning copious amounts of Gemara affects your reasoning skills.

Now learning Gemara is fine AS LONG AS you know from whence it comes. It comes from people who were just stumbling upon the concepts of logic and logical thinking and had not yet matured intellectually enough to develop things we take for granted such as modern literary analysis and modern critical thinking.

The problem with yeshivot (and Orthodox Jews in general) is they have way too much reverence for the Gemara. Just like Chareidim are wrong in blindly accepting Chazal's faulty science, so too we must not be wrong by blindly accepting Chazal's logic and methodology. But Yeshivish and Orthodox Gemara learning does not take any of this into account. They treat the Gemara's logic as something profound and relevant when in reality the Gemara's reasoning is much more primitive (excusable, of course, due to the time period) than our own.

Now you spend all day or most of your day sitting learning this profound and meaningful Gemara logic and eventually you're going to start thinking the obvious - hey! This is a normal way of thinking! When the Gemara does such and such that's just how one is logically supposed to treat such and such a dilemma. Then you might take the Gemara's methodology and start trying to apply it in places where it doesn't belong. . . .

I wonder this because the Orthodox seem rather unworried by explicit contradictions in the Pentateuch. (I'll finish that list some day....)

Could it be, perhaps, and this is just some random guessing, that one of the reasons the Orthodox believer happily accepts Chazals resolutions to these explicit contradictions is because they've gotten used to Talmudic thinking. The Gemara absolutely loves taking two explicit contradictory statements and then using some ingenious explanation to show how there really is no contradiction at all. Now you start learning things like this in 5th grade or something and continue to pound it into your brain for years. Every year you watch the Gemara say things like "This Baraita says that strawberries grow on bushes and this Baraita says that strawberries grow in fields לא קשיא. One is talking about strawberries in Israel while the other is talking about strawberries outside of Israel" And since this is the most logical training you're gonna get it middle school or high school, you start to think that this is a completely normal way of thinking. That it's completely run of the mill to take two complete opposites and try smashing them against each other until you get a resolution.

So now our Gemara saturated fellow cracks open a book about Bible criticism and starts reading about how scholars separate bits of the Torah that just don't shtim (flow). And our Talmudic scholar is not scared or confused but just annoyed at the stupidity of this so called scholar. Doesn't he know that when two things contradict each other you're supposed to uproot mountains to reconcile them! Silly Bible critic! You don't assume there is an argument you assume there is an ingenious and complex resolution. If only Elliot Friedmann had learned a little more Gemara! Then he would know how you're REALLY supposed to think.

Maybe.

Or maybe most people are just brainwashed well enough to NEVER ask questions.

More probable.

Yeshiva

2010-08-10T21:34:00.005-04:00

SH: Disclaimer - I had some great times in Yeshiva and made some very good friends. This post doesn't reflect those times but rather is an attempt to capture those moments of depression and gloom and how it felt to be a skeptic stuck in Yeshiva.

Also your Yeshiva experience may vary. This is just about me.

You sit in a small blatt room where the Rabbi is talking. He has been shouting for the last ten minutes about the enemies of Judaism. Western culture, television, secular literature! You try to think about something else but this man continues on his tirade against everything that is not the holy Torah. And then you look around. And people are paying attention. They're not just paying attention some are occasionally nodding in ascent to this ridiculous diatribe. You look to your left, you look to your right and almost everyone is fixated on the extremism of this so called Rabbi. And you start to wonder if everyone has gone insane.

But how could it be? Everyone insane and you the only sane one? You live in an insular world of Torah learning and prayer. There is no outside until the next bein hazmanim or off shabbos. No. Until your vacation there is nothing else. And nobody but you thinks there is something wrong. You're the only one who screams inside at the rampant stupidity and the mockery of logic. And you start to wonder if maybe you're the insane one.

But you know better than that! You know that you're not crazy! You know that this closed world is not the real world. You know! But everywhere every day the same things are repeated. Your ears are filled with the same message over and over again day in and day out. Everywhere you turn the same refrain. Everywhere you look the same ideal. There is nothing in this world worth doing besides learning Torah.

And you thank God that you know that this is not Judaism. You thank God that you hate this world so much that you are able to fight the brainwashing. Your skepticism blocks the noise. Your complete unwillingness to be turned into these people allows you to weather the storm and leave the Koslei Hayeshiva relatively unscathed.

But you look at your friends. You look at those who entered the Yeshiva without the nagging doubt. You look at those who have never questioned Judaism in their lives. And you watch them slowly be transformed. The constant barrage of the Yeshiva's ideology eventually brakes their meager defenses, for nothing can defend you from such constant conditioning except a strong cynical sense of skepticism.

Then you find yourself in a room. It's afternoon Shabbos seder and you and other malcontents are sitting complaining about Yeshiva. There are always malcontents. There are always those puzzle pieces that just don't fit. It does not take much to not like the Yeshiva. You are from a more Modern Orthodox background. You want to go to the movies. You hate learning Gemara from morning till night. Any of these little things will put you outside of the pale.

Everyone is laughing and mocking the stupidities of the Yeshiva and you feel that here in this room on a shabbos afternoon there is a small bastion of sanity in this world. You get overexcited and make fun of some clearly stupid Gemara or maybe you mock a verse in the Chumash. And then suddenly the room falls silent. The lighthearted fun comes to an abrupt stop. because these people are not skeptics they just are not Chareidim. They look at you uncomfortably because you have crossed the line. Even those who don't fit the mold have a line. And then you begin to wonder again if you're the only sane person in the room.

And then you leave the Koslei HaYeshiva and stare at the bright world and you're blinded by it's radiant light. The darkness you've lived in for all those years, broken only by the occasional glimmer of a bein hazmanim, had become an inseparable part of your life. But now it's all in the past. And you walk onwards towards the future. And swear to never look back. But before you leave you take one glimpse back at the poor retches still stuck in that world of gloom and misery and you remember that you too once lived with them. You once were part of that same world and you can't fathom how you survived it all. How!?

And you seriously start to wonder if you were once insane.

Contradictions and Inconsistencies in the Pentateuch: Part I

2010-08-07T23:02:00.000-04:00

I feel that I have not elaborated enough on this blog about my arch rival - Orthodox TMS. Although I have made general statements about my objections to it I have never bothered to expound on the nitty gritty of the subject. I think its about time for me to do this. So I would like to commence a "project" where I get into the details of the Chumash and analyze what I believe is the "untenability" of unified authorship. (We're not necessarily saying the DH yet, just not unified authorship)

I often mention in my various debates (blogosphere and real world) the fact that the Pentateuch is RIDDLED with inconsistencies. With so many inconsistencies and contradictions it is highly unlikely that one person (or one God whatever the case may be) wrote the whole thing. The believer invariably asks "Like what?" The average Orthodox believer doesn't even realize that there are any inconsistencies because s/he has been taught that the Torah is perfect and uniform and that all contradictions are not REALLY contradictions.

Therefore I've decided to compile a sort of list of contradictions between different bits of the Pentateuch so that I can reference it whenever anybody asks. I am fully aware that almost every contradiction and inconsistency that I will be referencing has been "dealt with" by traditional parshanut (Bible interpretation) or by Rabbinical interpretations. It is not my intent right now to explain why those ad hoc explanations don't help the basic problem, my intention at this stage is to merely show that these contradictions do exist and that they are formidable issues that any Bible scholar MUST deal with. (Some of the things I will cite are less problematic than others)

I don't have an encyclopedic knowledge of the Torah (yet!) so please in the comments help me out and add anything I missed so that I can incorporate it into the list (and PLEASE correct any mistakes)

So let's begin with a list of inconsistencies and contradictions in the Pentateuch from Genesis (G) through Exodus (Ex)

1. G 1-2 Creation Accounts

Two creation accounts. In one the order of creation is plants, animals, man. In the other man, plants animals.

2. G 6:13 - 7:5 Noach and the Animals

God speaks to Noach twice about the impending deluge. In Chapter 6 he says generically to bring two of every animal while in Chapter 7 he differentiates between pure animals (7 of each) and impure animals (2 0f each)

3. G 21:31 Be'er Sheva

Be'er Sheva is named after the oath (shevua) between Avraham and Avimelech while in 26:33 it is named Be'er Sheva after an an oath between Yitzchak and Avimelech.

4. G 26:34 Esav's Wives

Esav takes two Hittite wives Yehudit Bat (daughter of) Be'eri and Basmat Bat Elon. He later takes an additional wife (28:9) Machalat daughter of Yishmael. However in the extensive geneaology of Esav's family in 36 no mention is made of Yehudit or Basmat and in their place are two women we've never heard of Ada Bat Elon (a Hittite) and Oholibama Bat Ana (a Hivite)

5. G 28:19 Bet El

Yaakov calls Luz Bet El because of the revelation he has on his way to Aram. However in 35:15 Yaakov "again" calls the place Bet El in commemoration of another revelation he has on his way back from Aram.

6. G 32:29 Yisrael

Yaakov wrestles with the man/angel and get called Yisrael. However later on in 35:10 God calls him Yisrael.

7. G 37:18-30 Sale of Yosef

The Sale of Yosef has a few plot holes. Reuven tells the brothers to chuck him in the pit in order to secretly save him. Then Yehuda comes up with the sale idea and no mention is made that Reuven was not present. Then Reuven comes to the pit and for some reason is surprised that Yosef is not there. Something fishy is going on. There is also A LOT of confusion about who sold to whom (Is it the Ishmaelites is it the Midianites etc.)

8. G 46:8-34 Genealogy

The genealogy of Yaakov's sons and grandson in Genesis differs in at least twenty places from the genealogy given in Numbers 26.

9. Ex 6:2 YHWH

God says he never made his name YHWH known to the Avot. However we explicitly find God calling himself YHWH when he talks to the avot is various places. (One example is Yaakov and the ladder story where God rather explicitly says "I am YHWH")

10. Ex 12:8-9 The Pesach Offering

The laws of the Pesach offering. Here it must cannot be boiled in water and must be cooked. In Deuteronomy (15) it is just to be generically "cooked". Also here the Pesach has to be a lamb while in Deuteronomy it can be from "sheep and cattle."

11. Ex: 18:13-27 Yitro's Advice

Moshe sets up a hierarchy of judges based on Yitro's advice. However in the first chapter of Deuteronomy he makes no mention of Yitro and it sounds as if he came to the decision all by himself.

12. Ex 20:11 Shabbat

Besides the fact that the Ten Commandments here differ in language from the ones in Deuteronomy we also have a rather conspicuous difference when it comes to Shabbat. The reason given for Shabbat here is to commemorate the seven days of creation. However in Deuteronomy 5:15 the reason given is to give our slaves a rest in commemoration of our slavery in Egypt.

13. Ex 21:2-6 Hebrew Slave

The laws of a Hebrew slave. No mention is made of rewarding the slave (ha'anaka) when he goes free as in Deuteronomy 15:13. Also here the slave is to serve for six years while in Leviticus 25:40 no mention is made of the six years and instead a new factor is mentioned i.e. the remission of slaves in the Jubilee year.

But don't take my word for it do your homework (and earn mitzva points for learning Torah!) and look everything up!

To be continued....

Can Orthodoxy REALLY Be Reconciled With Science?

2010-08-07T21:43:00.005-04:00

I had a most interesting discussion the other day which I would like to share.

I got into a big argument with a relatively Yeshivish person about Young Earth Creationism. Now this person, we'll call him Reuven, is not an idiot and did not make the mistake of claiming that evolution is bunk or that geology is wrong etc. Instead he suggested that although science points unquestionably to an old earth it is still reasonable to assume that perhaps God tweaked things to make it look old.

Now I naturally rolled my eyes and perhaps overconfidently decided to show him the wrong of his ways but since I wanted to keep things "kosher" I tied my hand behind my back and took for granted, as he does, that the Torah is divine writ, without question, and is the eternal and infallible word of God. Since this is the Orthodox notion of TMS the point of the discussion was to see if the Modern Orthodox are succesfully able to hold both the doctrine of TMS and also uphold the reliability of science.

My first argument was that God would not "lie" (as I posted in my last post) about the world by creating it in a fashion which makes it seem that it is older than it really is.

Countered Reuven, God would not lie in the Torah that the world was created in 7 days.

I then said, that surely choosing the Torah over science is an arbitrary decision. After all God is deceiving us so to speak in one area either way, who is to say that the deception doesn't lie in the Torah instead of the science.

Countered Reuven, God never gave us nature as a source of insight or as a "guide to life". Conversely we were given the Torah for the explicit pupose of teaching us something. Therefore it indeed makes more sense to assume that the deception lies in nature not in the Torah.

I then said that we see that the Torah was written for a certain generation and perhaps made concessions to the superstitions and traditions of the Ancient Hebrews. Basically I invoked a sort of Nahum Sarna approach that the Torah was written in the form of Ancient Mythology as a "concession" to the spirit of the age,

Countered Reuven that even assuming that the Torah was written for a certain generation (he was quite reluctant to admit this) it is still unreasonable for God to leave such overt deception in a book which is meant to guide us. It is unreasonable for God to waste time expounding on a clearly fictional narrative in order to teach some sort of lesson to the Ancient Hebrews, when it clearly is a stumbling block for our generation. No matter how you say it, it is still a very misleading narrative and surely we should not attribute that to God?

I countered the Torah is not a history book etc.

He replied that that is true but is still should not mislead us.

I asked why God bothered to trick us with nature?

He said he had no idea but countered why would God trick us throught the Torah?

Since I decided not to say to Reuven "Well the Torah is not infallible etc." (Which is against Orthodox dogma) I basically lost the argument.

So I leave it to you folks. Did I miss something? Or is Modern Orthodoxy simply kidding itself when it claims to believe both in science and Torah? I've always assumed due to my ~~brainwashing~~ upbringing that although I personally don't believe in Orthodoxy, that Orthodoxy still does not HAVE to contradict science. But is this correct? Perhaps the Chareidim have it right and it is not reasonable to believe in the infallibility and complete divinity of the Torah and to also believe that science is correct. Perhaps the only real way to reconcile Judaism with science is to admit that the Torah is not infallible and is not ad verbatim the word of God. Maybe. I leave it to you.

The God of Young Earth Creationism Is Not Benevolent

2010-08-05T22:43:00.005-04:00

From Is God a Delusion? by Eric Reitan (Not THE book btw)

Young Earth Creationism is appalling, not just from a scientific perspective,but from a religious one. It forces us to swallow a picture of God that undercuts our capacity to trust God. It represents God as engaging in detailed deception, designing the universe so that the evidencepoints overwhelmingly in one direction, while the truth is contained in one old book.

And then, presumably, it is those who side with the book that God will favor.To those who side with science, we can imagine how God would chide them: You should have concluded that, when I created the world, I would design it to be consistently and systematically deceptive. Instead, you concluded that this ancient book passed down in one part of the world, within the Judeo-Christian tradition, was not literally accurate in every detail. How dare you! What an insult to my majesty! I will go now and reward those who think that in my great act of creation, I designed it all to be a fabulous lie! Those are the ones who clearly love me!

Of course, any God who said that wouldn’t be a good God, worthy of our devotion, the fulfillment of our ethico-religious hope. It is one thing to say there’s more to the universe than meets the eye, something else entirely to say that what meets the eye is a bunch of hokum. To say the former is to say that there are orders of reality beyond the empirical one, to which a scientific examination of the universe cannot speak. It is to say that, while what we learn from the best empirical observation may be true, it is not the whole truth – and perhaps the whole truth will radically reshape our understanding of the truth that is available to the naked eye.

By the way this applies equally to the Documentary Hypothesis and Mordechai Breuer's apologetics. What kind of evil God writes a book that looks like it was spliced together by different authors? Cummon God!

Of course the Torah-true response to all this is to cite the Midrash (anybody know the source) where Moshe asks "hey God, if you write 'let's create man' won't people kind of get the wrong idea about Monotheism and so forth. Maybe they'll start coming up with big words like henotheism!" To which God replied in his abundant wisdom "Let the skeptics scoff" See folks! We've been approaching this all wrong! God doesn't give a crap about leaving red herrings all over the place. He knew we'd scoff! And THAT is why the world looks older than 6,000 years and the Torah looks like it was written by many different people - because God couldn't care less that he's tricking us! So next time you're doing some scientific research make sure to leave a large caveat "God willing" which is to say "As long as God didn't arbitrarily decide to tamper with the results consistently ;)"

Hiding From Heresy

2010-08-03T20:29:00.006-04:00

When my doubts started I developed a sort of defense mechanism. Whenever perusing the library shelves I would stop short before reading anything inimical to the faith. Every time my hand reached out to grasp a books about Bible Criticism I would stop myself. Every time I was about to read a book of philosophy I would hold back. This wasn't because I thought reading "heretical" things was assur (forbidden). No, thank God, I was never so naive to think that. I did it purely for myself, so that I wouldn't distress myself further. I said to myself "Shilton, you're distraught enough as it is with all those gaping holes in your faith, why do you want to exacerbate things by reading more things which will cause you to doubt your cherished beliefs" And back to to the shelf the heretical book would go.

I deeply regret that defense mechanism because since I avoided reading "heretical" works I did not develop a coherent picture of what I thought and what I believed until I had wasted many years in Yeshiva. It was the ultimate bitul zman. If I just would have pulled the damn book of the shelf, opened it up, and imbibed the bittersweet, forbidden fruit of heresy, I would have saved myself a lot of time and trouble. Perhaps things would have worked out better than they did.

Today after a long dormancy that defense mechanism decided to rear it's ugly head. I don't want to get into the details right now, but while perusing the shelves I found something which slightly disturbed me, which might bring into question some things I take for granted and might cause me to rethink my life. I held the book in my hands and hesitated. And for the briefest second a little voice in my head piped up, a little voice from my childhood, and it said "Put it back on the shelf! Save yourself the distress. Just don't read it!"

No! I was disgusted with myself for even entertaining the thought for a moment! I refused to listen to that remnant of my past. That fearful Shilton who was scared that truth might pop out and frighten him at every corner! That Shilton who deluded himself by keeping himself ignorant! That Shilton who wasted years of his life for naught! I grabbed the book and proceeded to the counter and bought it immediately! No regrets no hesitation.

I will never hide from the truth again. I will embrace her like an old friend and follow her wherever she leads.

More About the Woman Cantor

2010-08-03T11:56:00.003-04:00

The argument about the infamous woman cantor has been heating up on DovBear.

So far DovBear has published 3 excellent posts on the issue which are worth a read.

On the other side of the argument is Harry Maryles (at whom my last post was directed) Although he is often rather moderate, on this issue he is adamantly against Rabbi Weiss and apparently all advancement of women's roles in Orthodox Judaism.

Here are some of his comments on DovBear (different colors denote different comments)which are a bit frightening due to their (IMHO) lack of logic or reasoning. It's a little scary when otherwise intelligent people turn their brains off in the name of religion, let's take a look:

(BTW Rabbi Maryles if you happen to read my blog [And I would be flattered] I apologize in advance if I come off as offensive, I hold you in the higest regard, but I strongly disagree with you on this issue. )

I'm sorry. Sometimes bending over too far backwards to accommodate someone else can cause your back to break. What ever happened to common sense?

SH: Erm.. does common sense = women must not daven?

Must we now have female Chazanim davening at the Amud?

I would say yes but according to Orthodox halacha THAT is no good. Unlike here where halacha allows it! (because kabbalat shabbat is not a real part of davening)

What possible spiritual benefit is there in that? How does one increase their Avodah SheB'Lev by listening to a female Chazan? Can you honestly say that it does so in any siginficant way? What exactly is accomplished here, DovBear?

SH: How about treating women as equal with men? Or is that not a lofty goal for you?

How does Klal Yisroel gain by having a female Chazan Daven Kabbalas Shabbos? How does the Shul gain? Are the Mispallelim going to ave more Kavana with a feamle standing and 'shuckling' ang the Bima or Amud?

SH: What with the shuckling in quotes

Do you think this is what God wants His people to do now? Come on.

SH: WHAT!? Why do you think you understand God better than Rabbi Weiss?

Dont you think there might just be something else driving this? ...and not a search for greater spirituality?

SH: Yeah it's called egalitarianism do you have a problem with that?

I'm sorry you see RYA in this way. I think he's right.

Judaism's Laws are not necessarily based on logic, zach.

SH: Um .... okay...

They are based solely on the will of God.

SH: WHAT?! If you're Orthodox you believe the Torah was given at Sinai. Now unless you happen to not know history or you haven't learned enough Gemara it is obvious that the Rabbis subsequently INTERPRETED the Written Torah. Rabbis + God = Halacha. How can you seriously say that "they are based solely on the will of God????" (Oh and one more time .... There is NO HALACHIC PROHIBITION HERE!)

It has nothing to do with what I think. Besides - I never said I don't respect women as equal in religion. I sadi the opposite. They are equal! But equal does not mean identical. Men and women are qually valued in the eyes of God. But they have been given different roles.

SH: Roles given by sexist Rabbis from 500 years ago. Sexism is obsolete as are laws based on it.

So in essense if a woman wanted to wear a Talis and teffilin, you're OK with it?

SH: Lol! Why not! It's funny that you automatically assume that this is the WORST thing that could ever happen when once again... IT'S COMPLETELY MUTTAR!

What about a woman's Tefillah group that requires women to wear Talis and Teffilin? How far do you want to go with this? Just because there is no explicit Issur in the Torah doesn't mean it must be done.

Do you have a problem putting a cat in the Aron Kodesh? No where in the SA does it say that doing so is Assur? Same thing Mechitzos in a shul. It is not in the SA anywhere. Do you think it's OK to daven in such a shul?

SH: When did a woman become equal to a cat? Are you saying that a woman davening is like the disgrace of putting a cat in the Aron Kodesh!? Shame on you.

That wasn't the point. The point is that not everything we want to do should be done just because its technically Mutar. If it is so out of the mainstream as to make it ridiculous then it ought not be done. In fact Im would say that by encouring women to be Chazanot one is encouringing abnormal behavior and rather than advancing the cause of women, one is hurting it.

SH: Abnormal by whose standards?

Let me ask you a question. What if your wife decided that she wants to express her high regard for Tznius by wearing a Burkas in public. Or what if a WTG required their women to wear Burkas. Would that be OK with you? After all there is no technical Issur against it.

SH: Whatever floats their boat

Check out the comments yourself if you think I took anything out of context.

The Woman Cantor

2010-08-01T20:15:00.006-04:00

Okay I'm getting sick of people whining about the woman leading kabbalat shabbat in Riverdale.

So let's set a few things straight

(Warning: This will be a bit of a rant if you don't like rude rants against accepted Orthodoxy then you are at the wrong blog):

Halacha:

The first thing I hear is "Kol B'Ishe Erva" (A Woman's Voice is Nakedness ) Most Orthodox authorities consider it forbidden to listen to a woman sing because it's considered promiscuous. However, there are very legitimate (and in my humble opinion more intelligent) approaches which essentially permit women singing. The first that comes to mind is that of Rav Bigman Rosh Yeshiva of Maaleh Gilboa in Israel. He wrote a rather lengthy and technical teshuva(in Hebrew) on the topic which I personally think is more true to the primary texts than stricter approaches and he basically concludes that woman singing is only considered promiscuous when done in a sexually provocative way. (Duh!)

He says five considerations have to be taken into account when a woman sings
-The atmosphere (I guess no smoke machines)
-The Words of the Song (No Pop)
-The Musical Style (No Pop)
-The Woman's Clothing (No Pop)
-The Woman's Body Language. (Definitely no Pop)

SH: I support prohibitions on pop music ;)

Folks! The woman cantor in question is not exactly grinding up against the bima and singing love songs for the congregation. She is not dressed like a popstar and performing songs with sexual themes. She is singing Kabbalat Shabbat for crying out loud! If you are turned on by that then you probably need to get out of the Beit Medrash a little more! It is completely appropriate it is completely asexual and we can rely on Rav Bigman and say it is halachically permissible!

The Spirit of Halacha

But ah this is not enough! Apparently there is something now called the "spirit of the halacha"! Oh didn't see that coming! What this means is grumpy Rabbis when they have utterly failed to justify a halachic prohibition on something resort to invoking the spirit of the halacha. Now the spirit of the halacha is an utterly subjective thing. It is unwritten, it is uncodified, it's not anything besides "I don't like this" Is that seriously a good objection? Cummon! " I don't like this" is not a legitimate reason to object to something. No one is forcing you to go listen to the woman cantor - if you don't like it daven somewhere else - but let those who are more open minded than you do their own thing - even though they are breaking your imaginary spirit of halacha which, let's be honest, means "things which make me feel uncomfortable because I'm still mentally chained to the Ancient World."

Moving on... Can someone perhaps explain to me how a woman cantor is against the spirit of the halacha in the first place? What part of a woman leading an optional part of the liturgy is against "the unwritten spirit of the halacha"? Does that mean that the halacha is sexist? Is the spirit of the halacha against women doing anything? Are the Modern Orthodox people objecting to Rabbi Weiss, really saying that the spirit of the halacha = our chauvinistic 18th century views. Fine! Get up and have the guts to say it! Don't invoke imaginary systems of the SOH. Get up and say proudly "Rabbi Weiss you are not Orthodox because Orthodoxy demands that we treat women differently than men and not allow them to perform any leadership functions whether or not halacha allows it." Cut the sophistry and say "I'm sexist and I'm proud!"

Don't get me wrong the primary works of halacha i.e. the Gemara and Shulkhan Arukh are exceedingly sexist. Why? Because they were written more than 500 years ago! Even if that ONCE was the spirit of the halacha - to be sexist, the times are a changing and it's time to realize that those bits of halacha which imply or encourage sexism are OBSOLETE! It's time to move on folks, check your calendar! It's the twenty first century!

Is Rabbi Weiss a rabble rouser? Does he like being controversial? Probably. But that does not justify the unfair treatment he is getting from the Centrist and Right Wing Modern Orthodox (Chareidim are a lost cause I ignore them) He is working within the bounds of halacha and Orthodoxy and saying "Listen folks, It's time to get with the program,stop sucking up to the Chareidim and really live up to your name - Modern Orthodoxy." They have no right to object.

Phew! Okay I'm calming down now.

Edit: Here is the official statement of the Hebrew Institute of Riverdale

Edit: Dov Bear's take on this:

In particular, I'm ireful about RYA's refusal to even discuss the way in which Torah teachings might be interpreted to make Orthodox Judaism more female-friendly. The world RYA admires tolerates lengthy and learned discussions about the permissibility of stealing from the US government. When it comes to ripping people off, halacha becomes a flexible tool, and every possible out is considered . When it comes to making women more comfortable with Judaism, this creativity is not welcome: suddenly there's no maneuvering room. This is bogus, and RYA knows it. Avi Weiss may not qualify as a Torah Sage, but he doesn't act without basis. His arguments in favor of allowing a woman to lead kabalas shabbos deserve to be discussed with the same care and respect as any other halachic argument. If, at the end of the long and careful discussion, you still think he's wrong, say elu v'alu and give Rabbi Wiess's community the same respect we give those Hasidic communities that run roughshod over torah hashkofa and accepted halachic protocols.* He is not to be rejected, insulted and thrown onto the trash heap simply because your mistaken sense of propriety is offended.

Aristotle's God

2010-07-31T22:01:00.004-04:00

No chiddush just getting my thoughts together (yes this is what I think about on my free time)

Aristotle's God (AG from now on) is pretty boring. It is actually surprising that any Jewish philosophers agreed to accept Aristotle's notion of God at all. AG has about as much theological significance as the theory of gravity and it's interesting how the completely "scientific" AG was adopted by philosophers of all 3 monotheistic religions.

AG is the first cause but only in sense of being"the ultimate goal of nature." AG by it's mere existence attracts nature sort of like gravity. All of nature "want to imitate" the perfection of AG and strives to "become like AG". It is only in this sense that AG is a cause by causing nature to gravitate towards it.

Aristotle's philosophy is focused on becoming. Everything is in a constant state of moving from potentiality into actuality. Aristotle needed some sort of unifying principle to explain this general trend. Why does nature move in the direction it does? Why do things move from potentiality into actuality. The principle to explain this is AG. A completely impersonal and overly scientific force of nature. This God is not a creator because the world was never created. The world has for all eternity been imitating AG who is not the source of being but rather it's inspiration and teleological principle.

AG is defined as "thought thinking about itself". To the philosopher Aristotle this was the ultimate being. It is ultimate in that it is pure actuality with no potentiality involved. (As opposed to pure matter without form which in theory would be pure potentiality) Because of the need to be pure act AG can never change. He (or more appropriately it) can only be a source of "movement" by being the perfect actuality thus attracting all potentiality in the world to BECOME more "actual".

Another qualification for AG to be a source of pure actuality is AG in not at all physical. In the Aristotelian world all being consists of matter which is roughly equivalent to physical existence, and form which is of a more "spiritual" nature. Matter is pure potentiality and only changes through it's accompanying form. Therefore if AG were to be at all made out of matter he/it would no longer be pure actuality but would be by definition potential. One has to wonder how much of the Rambam's insistence on an incorporeal God was Jewish and how much of it was Aristotelian.

Another consequence of AG's unchanging role is that he/it can know nothing besides himself. If AG were to know of the happenings in our little corporeal world that would mean that he has changed by finding out something that he did not know before. A transition from potentiality to actuality. All AG knows is his unchanging self. This is one of THE biggest problems with trying to reconcile AG with the Monotheistic God who is said to be involved with the deeds of mankind.

Now things start to get interesting when the scientific AG gets imported into Monotheistic theology. In the Middle Ages all three of the big Monotheistic religions at some point accepted Aristotle and his baggage i.e. AG. The ingenious methods used to reconcile a personal God with a "scientific" God are of course fascinating but that's not what I want to talk about right now.

The problem with AG is he is really not "religious". He is but a force of nature a pedantic philosophical abstraction used to explain order in the world. Some will argue that religion originally stemmed from just that - an attempt to explain the world. But perhaps there is a deeper dimension to religion that AG just could not provide.

Monotheistic religion is stuck in a paradox. On the one hand it wants to create a transcendent un-human God. A God who is unlike this world and is beyond nature in contradistinction to the pagan gods who were very much part of this world and were ruled to a certain extent by the laws of nature. This is the common ground Monotheism has with AG. On the other hand this Monotheistic God is interested in humans. He bothers to reveal himself at various points in history to mere mortal men. He is deeply concerned with man and takes a personal interest in man's various affairs here on earth. Hence the big tension in Monotheism in the one hand a pull to abstraction and on the other hand a pull to "personability" to closeness.

Classical Jewish philosophy (as well as Islamic and Christian) by adopting AG swung the pendulum to the one extreme of Monotheism i.e. the abstract facet. The consequence of this is much of the other facet had to give way. Maimonide's obsessive requirement to not describe God with positive attributes reflects this attitude. Can one love Maimonide's God? Can one "have a relationship" with him? The God of Aristotle is definitely similar to Monotheistic abstraction but perhaps takes it too far by eliminating a God of personality. A God who is merciful a God who goes to Galut with his children - Israel. Perhaps because it at little too far - rationalism did not ultimately survive the onslaught of Kabbalah which was largely victorious in the battle for the Jewish soul.

(thoughts and opinions on new blog format appreciated)

Testing

2010-07-30T12:51:00.010-04:00

It looks like we're sticking with orange. Today I figured out why everyone uses blogger's default templates - because custom codes are a PAIN!

Should've started my blog on wordpress! Looks so much nicer with half the work.

The Babel Fish, God, and a Survey

2010-07-29T19:41:00.012-04:00

Okay first take this survey that someone doing a psychological study on Orthodox childhood experiences and how they impact going OTD and staying on, wanted me to "disseminate".

Now for something completely different the Babel Fish!:

(Watch Videos if you don't know what a Babel Fish is) (philistine!)

Oh and and here is the old version:

Orthodox: God can't give us absolute proof of his existence or of Judaism because then we would have no Bechira Chophshit (free will)

Let's say we discovered a Babel Fish. After many years of scouring the oceans scientists finally found a Babel fish i.e. a creature so bizarrely and purposefully designed that it is impossible for it to have arisen from mere natural selection. Let's just say we found such a thing and there was scientific consensus that this was definitive proof for intelligent design.

I'm sure that the Orthodox world would be up in arms! I mean here you have it! Something which destroys free will, a cornerstone of Judaism, gone! I'm sure all the kiruv organizations would be giving long seminars trying to show that the Babel fish is but a product of chance! I'm sure some Rabbi would be put in cherem for even admitting the existence of this peculiar creature. The atheists would be touting this as another proof against God. Fundamentalists of all creeds would be demanding that we "teach the controversy" in our schools and give equal treatment to the theory of how the Babel fish is just another product of natural evolution.

For some reason I doubt it would work out like that. But I guess if you say that "God can't/won't take away our free will" then that's how it should really play out. Right?

P.S.

I always pronounced it "Bah-bel" they seem to pronounce it "Bay-bel". What is the correct pronunciation of Babel, as in Tower of Babel, in English?

Hitchhiker's Guide to God

2010-07-28T15:49:00.007-04:00

I should've posted this on Towel Day(I'm such a dork) but this will have to do. Here are some snippets from a talk Douglas Adams gave about God and various other random things.

Whether or not he's right I just think he has some interesting ideas:

Where does the idea of God come from? Well, I think we have a very skewed point of view on an awful lot of things, but let's try and see where our point of view comes from. Imagine early man. Early man is, like everything else, an evolved creature and he finds himself in a world that he's begun to take a little charge of; he's begun to be a tool-maker, a changer of his environment with the tools that he's made and he makes tools, when he does, in order to make changes in his environment. To give an example of the way man operates compared to other animals, consider speciation, which, as we know, tends to occur when a small group of animals gets separated from the rest of the herd by some geological upheaval, population pressure, food shortage or whatever and finds itself in a new environment with maybe something different going on. Take a very simple example; maybe a bunch of animals suddenly finds itself in a place where the weather is rather colder. We know that in a few generations those genes which favour a thicker coat will have come to the fore and we'll come and we'll find that the animals have now got thicker coats. Early man, who's a tool maker, doesn't have to do this: he can inhabit an extraordinarily wide range of habitats on earth, from tundra to the Gobi Desert - he even manages to live in New York for heaven's sake - and the reason is that when he arrives in a new environment he doesn't have to wait for several generations; if he arrives in a colder environment and sees an animal that has those genes which favour a thicker coat, he says "I'll have it off him". Tools have enabled us to think intentionally, to make things and to do things to create a world that fits us better. Now imagine an early man surveying his surroundings at the end of a happy day's tool making. He looks around and he sees a world which pleases him mightily: behind him are mountains with caves in - mountains are great because you can go and hide in the caves and you are out of the rain and the bears can't get you; in front of him there's the forest - it's got nuts and berries and delicious food; there's a stream going by, which is full of water - water's delicious to drink, you can float your boats in it and do all sorts of stuff with it; here's cousin Ug and he's caught a mammoth - mammoth's are great, you can eat them, you can wear their coats, you can use their bones to create weapons to catch other mammoths. I mean this is a great world, it's fantastic. But our early man has a moment to reflect and he thinks to himself, 'well, this is an interesting world that I find myself in' and then he asks himself a very treacherous question, a question which is totally meaningless and fallacious, but only comes about because of the nature of the sort of person he is, the sort of person he has evolved into and the sort of person who has thrived because he thinks this particular way. Man the maker looks at his world and says 'So who made this then?' Who made this? - you can see why it's a treacherous question. Early man thinks, 'Well, because there's only one sort of being I know about who makes things, whoever made all this must therefore be a much bigger, much more powerful and necessarily invisible, one of me and because I tend to be the strong one who does all the stuff, he's probably male'. And so we have the idea of a god. Then, because when we make things we do it with the intention of doing something with them, early man asks himself , 'If he made it, what did he make it for?' Now the real trap springs, because early man is thinking, 'This world fits me very well. Here are all these things that support me and feed me and look after me; yes, this world fits me nicely' and he reaches the inescapable conclusion that whoever made it, made it for him.

(I don't know if his explanation here will explain things like animism and fetishism which perhaps preceded the idea of the "creator God" and I also don't know if early religions all came to the conclusion that the world was made for man. It is my understanding that many ancient myths describe the gods creating men for their OWN use. But whatever)

He continues to argue that the idea of God might have some sort of purpose. In other words perhaps God/religion is a vital part of our society. He compares this to the institution of fiat money where we attribute meaning to worthless pieces of paper but for a good reason. Just like money is a useful fiction perhaps the idea of God also is.

He concludes:

So, my argument is that as we become more and more scientifically literate, it's worth remembering that the fictions with which we previously populated our world may have some function that it's worth trying to understand and preserve the essential components of, rather than throwing out the baby with the bath water; because even though we may not accept the reasons given for them being here in the first place, it may well be that there are good practical reasons for them, or something like them, to be there. I suspect that as we move further and further into the field of digital or artificial life we will find more and more unexpected properties begin to emerge out of what we see happening and that this is a precise parallel to the entities we create around ourselves to inform and shape our lives and enable us to work and live together. Therefore, I would argue that though there isn't an actual god there is an artificial god and we should probably bear that in mind. That is my debating point and you are now free to start hurling the chairs around!

I recommend reading the whole thing over here.

God's Last Message To His Creation: "and Oholibamah bore Jeush"

2010-07-28T10:03:00.003-04:00

Imagine you are told you are going to get a message from God. This is it. God is finally going to make everything clear. God is finally going to give us a guide to life and explain to us the deep meaning of the universe. All doubts will be allayed all queries answered. This is going to be the biggest moment in human history! Crowds await in anticipation for the moment when God will reveal all.

And then God appears! And what does he do!?

He starts reading genealogical tables and construction plans for hours!

For a book which is purported to hold God's ultimate message to man and is supposed to be a "handbook" to life, the Torah is awfully prosaic.

For a book which is is supposed to "not be history" the Torah is awfully full of genealogy and minute historical details.

For a book which is supposed to be written by God, the Torah is rather underwhelming.

I asked a Rabbi once "Rabbi, for a book written by God the Torah is pretty ordinary. Shouldn't God be able to write books with more flash and flare?"

The Rabbi told me that the boring parts have deep messages and that a large portion of the Zohar is dedicated to expounding the seemingly useless bits such as the genealogy of Esav's descendants.

Yeah, if Moby Dick was considered holy I'm sure someone would be busy expounding that. Anything can be interpreted as an allegory or an esoteric message.

What should God's book look like? Well maybe it would actually tell us what the Hell is going on around here on Earth. And maybe explain to us some of the deepest questions that have been troubling man for ages. That would be pretty nice.

Instead it explains to us how big a certain tent should be.

But hey God has his reasons so maybe he just likes writing like a pedantic historian.

Maybe.

Or maybe the Torah is what it looks like: a history book with some laws thrown in.

Take your pick.

Tribalism

2010-07-27T08:50:00.003-04:00

By tribalism I mean the fact that classical Judaism considers itself the religion of a certain people - not a universal religion.

The downside of this idea is that in some denominations of Judaism there is a clear attitude of superiority to non-Jews. The whole "chosen people" thing when taken too far can degenerate into a sort of racism. Taken to it's most extreme form some Chareidim consider "pure Jews" better than converts when it comes to arranging marriages etc. (Of course they won't admit it but everyone knows)

The upside is that in theory Judaism is more tolerant than other religions (at least the other Monotheistic ones). Christianity and Islam classically present themselves as religions incumbent on EVERY human being. Judaism on the other hand has a much more limited scope - it is only obligatory for Jews - and non-Jews only have to keep the 7 Noachide Laws. (Which are a breeze!)

So I don't know what's more harmful a universal religion which says - if you're not with us you're going to Hell! Or a national religion which says - if you're not part of our nation you're a donkey with the discharge of a horse!

Take your pick.

There is a God and he Believes In Argentina!

2010-07-26T21:58:00.007-04:00

It's a little late but in honor of the world cup... hehehe

(Posted by Amitnira)

Rough Translation:
Hello

Hello do you hear me?
Hello Hello
Argentina do you hear me ?!

Yes yes it is me!

The moment is approaching and I wanted to tell you something...

It was me behind the goal post, against Holland, at the last moment in '78

It was me behind the crossbar against Yugoslavia in '90

Against Brazil it was me of course

Was there any doubt?

You might say "where were you against Germany and Sweden?"

What can I do? Satan also plays! [SH:Lol!]

But it was not me who beat the three oranges!!!

It was not me with those amazing blocks!!!

Dear God!!! It was not me who made that amazing goal on a corner kick!

These were not the work of my hands!

It was not me who ran 50 meters with the ball, it was not me who left them behind forever!

Pray! Beseech! Swear!

Fill the the streets! the houses! the offices! And love these colors more than anything!

I believe in you!

SH: If I was an Argentinian I would probably find this pretty inspiring, since I'm not I think it's hell of a funny! The music made it perfect! The funny thing is this is exactly what countries used to believe back in the day. When two countries went to war, invariably both sides were CERTAIN God was on THEIR side.

I Like Studying Judaism (as Wissenschaft)

2010-07-25T23:25:00.009-04:00

"In an introduction to a lecture Scholem delivered at the seminary, Lieberman said that several years earlier some students asked to have a course here in which they could study kabbalistic texts. He had told them that it was not possible, but if they wished they could have a course on the history of kabbalah. For at the university, Lieberman said, 'It is forbidden to have a course in nonsense. But the history of nonsense that is scholarship.'"

From Jewish Literacy by Joseph Telushkin (p.249)

Gershom Scholem really got me interested in the study of ancient ideas and that quote from Lieberman also inspired me to take that sort of study seriously. Even if nobody, or very few, people believe these things nowadays I still find it fascinating to understand the different ideas that people have come up with, lived by and sworn by through the ages. Though I pretty much reject most of Jewish dogma, I still think the history and evolution of Jewish dogma is not only important to know if we are to understand our history and present, but is also just a very interesting subject.

Now none of this of course happened while I was still mentally trapped in Yeshiva. In Yeshiva I wasn't studying the evolution of ideas I was being taught eternal truths. I wasn't reading the Gemara as an object of history but as infallible dogma. It was only after I escaped that mindset, and finally accepted that Judaism is my history and not my belief that I began to enjoy studying it. (Before I began doubting Judaism I utterly loved learning but for somewhat different reasons)

So I don't know if any of you care but allow me to tell you a bit about my thoughts on the various subjects in Jewish studies.

Medieval Jewish Philosophy - I have a rather strange fascination with Aristotelian Physics and Metaphysics because it's so interesting that for hundreds of years THAT was the science, even though it was complete rubbish. Also the Medieval Jewish Philosophers deal with many of the BASIC themes that religious thinkers still struggle with today (e.g. Reason vs. Revelation)

Modern Jewish Philosophy- Even if you think it's all rubbish and that modern attempts at creating a synthesis of modernity and religion are ultimately futile, the struggle itself is very interesting. Religion is being challenged by modernity at every turn, how has/will it cope and will it survive the intellectual challenges to it's once unquestioned authority.

Kabbalah - Since I never learned it in my Litvish Yeshivas I find it interesting and don't associate it with ignorant Rabbis. (if I'd gone to a Chassidish Yeshiva I would doubtless hate it) It's mind boggling that this religion within a religion popped up out of nowhere in the Middle Ages (well not quite out of nowhere...)proceeded to vanquish rationalism, and remained dominant for almost 500 years. Also you have to admit that sefirot, klipot, gilgulim and merkavot are much more interesting than stolen tallitot and goring oxen.

Talmud - It's very hard for me to enjoy learning Talmud ever since I had it force fed to me for years by a bunch of ignorant dogmatic Rabbis. I basically associate it with everything wrong with Judaism. But sometimes I manage to forget my bad relationship with Gemara and treat it like an interesting, quaint historical artifact. (And also THE most influential book in Jewish history.) When the Gemara stops being YOUR laws and YOUR source of morality , then you can finally detach yourself from it's weirdness and have some sort of appreciation. (But admittedly, its kind of repetitive, it's not particularly well written, and is the last thing I want to study when there are so many other interesting things out there.)

Tanakh - It's history (sorta) but more importantly it's got some rather well written parts. I started appreciating the Prophets when I realized that the prophets weren't just trying to deliver messages but were trying to do so eloquently and poetically. Even if you disagree with their message they sure do a good job at expressing it. Same as Gemara - an integral part of my appreciation of it was when I stopped thinking of it as a moral and spiritual guide but rather a record of my people's history and culture.

I think that's about everything. What Jewish subjects do you like and why?

DH vs.TMS = False Dichotomy

2010-07-25T10:31:00.011-04:00

If you want to watch the stupid people stop over at the Orthoprax Rabbi - really stupid people seem to simply abound there, probably because it's there 14th ikkar of emuna that someone educated in Judaism cannot become an atheist. Now we can't have that can we! It seriously saddens me to the depths of my heart that a people who produced Maimonides, Spinoza, and Einstein can produce people like this.

Anyway I started an argument with one of the folks there about the DH (why do I bother!)

One of the misconceptions frummies have about the DH is that if they somehow destroy the DH (which they have tried doing with limited success) then they are somehow out of the water, and they can celebrate their divine Pentateuch. Well folks, sorry to burst your bubble but there are many other options besides the DH and TMS. Let us analyze (b'kiztur nimratz) the different possibilities for arguments sake, of who/what/when wrote the Pentateuch and decide how far away the Orthodox are from proving their point. (The OJ apologists seem to thrive on false dichotomies)

1. TMS

God wrote Torah through Moshe

2. Mosaic authorship not divine

Okay just 'cuz Moshe wrote it doesn't mean it's from God. Ah the Kuzari proof!? Folks, people were illiterate back then so Moshe prolly could've wrote "I'm a pink monkey with long hair" and maybe 10 people would've been able to read it. (There are other objections but אין פה מקום להאריך) The prophecies in Devarim are not precise enough to "prove" that the Torah makes accurate predictions (Read Bondage of the Mind by R.D. Gold) Also I HOPE God didn't really want us mercilessly slaughtering Midianites and Amalekites, but hey that's just an evil heretic like me. REAL tzadikim obviously think that's A-OK.

3. Non-Mosaic authorship

Let's say ONE person wrote the whole thing. Okay. But it still is rather hard to claim that the book we have was written by a CONTEMPORARY of the events described. Besides referring to Moshe in the 3rd person, the Pentateuch talks as if it is describing events long past. I can't PROVE that to you but if you read it with an open mind it will immediately become apparent. I quote Spinoza on this over here.

4. Multiple Authorship

Let's say the whole JEPD thing is rubbish. You're STILL not outta the water. Because the Torah contradicts itself CONSTANTLY. Yes, yes, I know the Rabbis "solved" all the problems. But these are almost all FORCED EXPLANATIONS. And pashut peshat is that when the Torah says one thing and in another place says something COMPLETELY DIFFERENT. That it wasn't written by one guy. (Unless God/Moshe was a little unbalanced of course)

5. the DH

Folks, the DH has what to stand on. Don't throw it out so quickly. (And it's not JUST about YHWH/ELOHIM that's JUST HOW IT STARTED!)

A Note About Breuer

Okay Rabbi Mordechai Breuer basically says: God writes AS IF many people wrote the Torah (to teach us some sort of lesson). This is roughly equivalent to Gosse and his Jewish fan Gottlieb who say that God creates/writes in tricky ways. If you believe in Breuer you might as well believe in Gosse and you might as well believe that Zaboomafoo (any old GH readers here?) created the world, wrote the Torah, and wrote Shakespeare too once he was at it.

A Note About Umberto Cassuto

Cassuto did not believe in the DH but believed in Multiple Authorship

So...

So conventional Orthodox ideology, let's just say you have a way to go before you can "prove" your Divine Pentateuch Written by Moshe theory. Anyone who can CONVINCINGLY knock down ALL of the various possibilities above has a right to believe in OJ TMS. Everybody else is just following their faith semi-blindly. So STOP hating on the DH because even after you've jumped that hurdle you have a LOOOOOOOONG way to go.

Why do I Care?

I wouldn't mind if people hung onto their cherished Jewish beliefs despite the overwhelming challenges from modernity. HOWEVER, I cannot stand the maddening chutzpa of J-bloggers saying that "The DH is Dead" or "Only idiots believe in the DH" or "The DH makes no sense" I consider it an insult to my intelligence and more importantly an insult to the long and bitter inner conflict I went through trying to reconcile what I knew about Orthodoxy and Bible scholarship. It took me YEARS to admit that TMS was untenable. No schmuck is gonna come along and cavalierly call the end point of my inner struggle "nonsense" without a fight. So if any OJ'ers are reading this (all one of you if the poll on the side is correct) I would absolutely LOVE to here your response.

Ikkarim for Afterlife in the Rambam's Philosophy

2010-07-23T00:21:00.001-04:00

No chiddush just gathering my thoughts ....

The Rambam believed that we gain immortality not through our good deeds or our Yirat Shamayim but rather through our intellect and through philosophic speculation about God (which has got to do with Medieval Aristotlean concepts of knowledge but maybe for another post)

The Rambam's difficulty was that he did not want a completely elitist religion and he needed a means by which ALL people could obtain immortality not JUST the clever people.

Therefore he came up with the idea of the Ikkarim of emuna. Now don't get me wrong the Ikkarim in the Rambam's philosophy serve other purposes, but one of the main purposes of the Ikkarim is to provide a means by which the common man can obtain a level of immortality.

Since the Rambam's immortality is obtained through a knowledge of God, the simple man can also participate in this to a certain extent by also having a sort of true knowledge of God. Although the simple believer will never reach the level of the philosopher he can get his "portion in the world to come" even if not on the same level as the philosopher's, by having correct knowledge of God. This is but another instance of how the Rambam attempts to reconcile the elitist God of the philosophers with the Monotheistic God of the common man.

The Ravaad in the Mishne Torah says about the Rambam's stress on the importance of knowing Go'd incorporeality - that many greater men than the Rambam believed that God has a body.

The Ravaad himself did not believe in God's corporeality, however he was defending the belief of the simple man from the Rambam's philosophical demands.

The Ravaad is coming from a completely different direction than the Rambam. The Rambam DEMANDS that even the common man has certain correct opinions about God - otherwise the simple believer will not obtain any sort of "Olam Haba".

However the Raavad is coming from the POV that an afterlife is not the result of Aristotlean speculation but rather from good deeds and fear of heaven. Therefore to him - the naive belief of the simple man is not as vital as it is in the Rambam's philosophy and therefore can be pardoned.

Can Halacha Be Binding If God Isn't Watching?

2010-07-21T16:17:00.001-04:00

The official difference between Conservative/Orthodox Judaism and Reform Judaism is the former believes that halacha is in some way, shape or form is binding.

What I wonder is what does it mean "halacha is binding"

In secular law the only thing that really makes a law binding is the ability of the government to punish you for not keeping it. Would anyone take any secular law seriously without some sort of penalty or incentive?

So when it comes to religious law can one only speak of binding halacha in a meaningful way if one believes that God will punish you or reward you for keeping halacha? I think so. I see no possible way of speaking about binding Halacha without saying that God enforces it. In fact I think R' Albo said that the fundamental difference between religious law and secular law is that the former is only kept in public while the latter is ALWAYS kept due to our "knowledge" of God's omniscience and I guess vengeance.

What is the Conservative stance on afterlife and God's reward and punishment? I'm not sure. Anyone know? And am I correct in saying that religious law is basically meaningless without a belief in some sort of divine accountability?

Some Tisha B'Av Bialik

2010-07-20T22:16:00.005-04:00

I was looking through the Tisha B'Av liturgy and I realized that I just hate Eliezer Hakalir's piyutim. They're ... I dunno... just not good! Anyway I was thinking of this great Bialik poem which perfectly fits the spirit of the day (plus I found an English translation online!)If more piyutim were this good I might be able to pay some more attention on Tisha B'Av. Enjoy!

עַל הַשְּׁחִיטָה

שָׁמַיִם, בַּקְּשׁוּ רַחֲמִים עָלָי!

אִם-יֵשׁ בָּכֶם אֵל וְלָאֵל בָּכֶם נָתִיב –

וַ אֲ נִ י לֹא מְצָאתִיו –

הִתְפַּלְּלוּ אַתֶּם עָלָי!

אֲ נִ י – לִבִּי מֵת וְאֵין עוֹד תְּפִלָּה בִּשְׂפָתָי,

וּכְבָר אָזְלַת יָד אַף-אֵין תִּקְוָה עוֹד –

עַד-מָתַי, עַד-אָנָה, עַד-מָתָי?

הַתַּלְיָן! הֵא צַוָּאר – קוּם שְׁחָט!

עָרְפֵנִי כַּכֶּלֶב, לְךָ זְרֹעַ עִם-קַרְדֹּם,

וְכָל-הָאָרֶץ לִי גַרְדֹּם –

וַאֲנַחְנוּ – אֲנַחְנוּ הַמְעָט!

דָּמִי מֻתָּר – הַךְ קָדְקֹד, וִיזַנֵּק דַּם רֶצַח,

דַּם יוֹנֵק וָשָׂב עַל-כֻּתָּנְתְּךָ –

וְלֹא יִמַּח לָנֶצַח, לָנֶצַח.

וְאִם יֶשׁ-צֶדֶק – יוֹפַע מִיָּד!

אַךְ אִם-אַחֲרֵי הִשָּׁמְדִי מִתַּחַת רָקִיעַ

הַצֶּדֶק יוֹפִיעַ –

יְמֻגַּר-נָא כִסְאוֹ לָעַד!

וּבְרֶשַׁע עוֹלָמִים שָׁמַיִם יִמָּקּוּ;

אַף-אַתֶּם לְכוּ, זֵדִים, בַּחֲמַסְכֶם זֶה

וּבְדִמְכֶם חֲיוּ וְהִנָּקוּ.

וְאָרוּר הָאוֹמֵר: נְקֹם!

נְקָמָה כָזֹאת, נִקְמַת דַּם יֶלֶד קָטָן

עוֹד לֹא-בָרָא הַשָּׂטָן –

וְיִקֹּב הַדָּם אֶת-הַתְּהוֹם!

יִקֹּב הַדָּם עַד תְּהֹמוֹת מַחֲשַׁכִּים,

וְאָכַל בַּחֹשֶׁךְ וְחָתַר שָׁם

כָּל-מוֹסְדוֹת הָאָרֶץ הַנְּמַקִּים.

On The Slaughter

Heaven, beg mercy for me! If there is
a God in you, a pathway through
you to this God - which I have not
discovered - then pray for me! For my
heart is dead, no longer is there prayer
on my lips; all strength is gone, and
hope is no more. Until when, how
much longer, until when?

You, executioner! Here's my neck - go
to it, slaughter me! Behead me like a
dog, yours is the almighty arm and the
axe, and the whole earth is my scaffold
- and we, we are the few! My blood is
fair game - strike the skull, and
murder's blood, the blood of nurslings
and old men, will spurt onto your
clothes and will never, never be wiped
off.

And if there is justice - let it show
itself at once! But if justice show itself
after I have been blotted out from
beneath the skies - let its throne be
hurled down forever! Let heaven rot
with eternal evil! And you, the arrogant,
go in this violence of yours, live by
your bloodshed and be cleansed by it.

And cursed be the man who says:
Avenge! No such revenge - revenge for
the blood of a little child - has yet been
devised by Satan. Let the blood pierce
through the abyss! Let the blood seep
down into the depths of darkness, and
eat away there, in the dark, and breach
all the rotting foundations of the earth.

How Not to Read Kinnot

2010-07-20T00:11:00.004-04:00

If you don't understand 'em you probably missed the point

The kinnot are not magical incantations even according to the most fundamentalist forms of Judaism. So if you have no idea what the hell the kinnot mean then you might as well close your kinnot book and spend your time doing something more worthwhile. Translations are little help because poetry gets lost in translation.

If you don't appreciate 'em you probably missed the point

The kinnot are supposed to be aesthetically pleasing and evocative. If you (like most people nowadays) do not appreciate poetry then you might as well read a holocaust book instead of wasting your time saying repetitive words. No one can force you to appreciate poetry you either do or you don't. The kinnot are clearly aimed at the former.

If you chant 'em you probably missed the point

Its poetry for crying out loud! Say it properly! Anyone who rushes through the kinnot is just being stupid.

If you say all of 'em you probably missed the point

There is no reason to say every kinnah! You choose one or two you like (I recommend Ibn Gabirol's "Shomron"), read it, appreciate it a bit and finish Tisha B'Av services at a reasonable time instead of 12 O'clock or something. Nobody, in most shuls, is even paying attention after the twentieth kinna! Whoever invented the siddur did a great disservice to the Jewish people by making people think that you have to read every word.

So what is the point that you're missing?

I'm not quite sure. If you're a believer then the point is that for some reason or other its a religious duty to feel bad about the destruction of the temple. The kinnot and here is the keyword are a mean to an end not an end themselves. If kinnot fail to be evocative to you then THERE IS NO POINT IN SAYING THEM.

Cummon Orthodoxy be a little creative! Why isn't there a booming industry of Tisha B'Av movies portraying some of our worst tragedies? I'm sure more people would get meaning out of a movie version of The Jewish Revolt than some old Hebrew poems. Where are Tisha B'Av novels and Tisha B'Av plays? Why are we so damn uncreative that the only medium of expression we make use of on this day are poems composed hundreds of years ago! A little variety and creativity!

For the rest of I guess there is little point, except maybe to muse about the long difficult history we Jews lived through and to appreciate the fact that despite it all we managed to not only survive but to thrive!

I for one will be reading Josephus and perhaps sit (on the floor of course!) appreciating some of the better poems in the Tisha B'Av liturgy.

An easy fast everyone!

Edit: My favorite kinna below, (it's so good that it gets said twice in the Tisha B'Av liturgy):

שׁוֹמְרוֹן קוֹל תִּתֵּן מְצָאוּנִי עֲוֹנַי

לְאֶרֶץ אַחֶרֶת יְצָאוּנִי בָנָי

וְאָהֳלִיבָה תִזְעַק נִשְׂרְפוּ אַרְמוֹנָי

וַתֹּאמֶר צִיּוֹן עֲזָבַנִי יְיָ

לֹא לָךְ אָהֳלִיבָה חֲשׁוֹב עָנְיֵךְ כְּעָנְיִי

הֲתַמְשִׁילִי שִׁבְרֵךְ לְשִׁבְרִי וּלְחָלְיִי

אֲנִי אָהֳלָה סוּרָה בָּגַדְתִּי בְקָשְׁיִי

וְקָם עָלַי כַּחְשִׁי וְעָנָה בִי מִרְיִי

וּלְמִקְצָת יָמִים שִׁלַּמְתִּי נִשְׁיִי

וְתִגְלַת פִּלְאֶסֶר אָכַל אֶת פִּרְיִי

חֲמוּדוֹתַי הִפְשִׁיט וְהִצִּיל אֶת עֶדְיִי

וְלַחֲלַח וּלְחָבוֹר נָשָׂא אֶת שִׁבְיִי

דֹּמִּי אָהֳלִיבָה וְאַל תִּבְכִּי כְּבִכְיִי

אֲנִי נַדְתִּי לִרְחוֹק וְדַי לִי זֹאת דַּיִּי

שְׁנוֹתַיִךְ אָרְכוּ וְלֹא אָרְכוּ שָׁנָי

מְשִׁיבָה אָהֳלִיבָה אֲנִי כֵן מָרַדְתִּי

וּבְאַלּוּף נְעוּרַי כְּאָהֳלָה בָּגַדְתִּי

דֹּמִּי אָהֳלָה כִּי יְגוֹנִי פֻקַּדְתִּי

נָדַדְתְּ אַתְּ אַחַת וְרַבּוֹת נָדַדְתִּי

הִנֵּה בְיַד כַּשְׂדִים פַּעֲמַיִם נִלְכַּדְתִּי

וּשְׁבִיָּה עֲנִיָּה לְבָבֶל יָרַדְתִּי

וְנִשְׂרַף הַהֵיכָל אֲשֶׁר בּוֹ נִכְבַּדְתִּי

וּלְשִׁבְעִים שָׁנָה בְּבָבֶל נִפְקַדְתִּי

וְשַׁבְתִּי לְצִיּוֹן עוֹד וְהֵיכָל יִסַּדְתִּי

גַּם זֹאת הַפַּעַם מְעַט לֹא עָמַדְתִּי

עַד לְקָחַנִי אֱדוֹם וְכִמְעַט אָבַדְתִּי

וְעַל כָּל הָאָרֶץ נָפוֹצוּ הֲמוֹנָי

הַחוֹמֵל עַל דַּל חֲמוֹל עַל דַּלּוּתָם

וּרְאֵה שִׁפְלוּתָם וְאֹרֶךְ גָּלוּתָם

וְרוֹמֵם קַלּוּתָם וְהָקֵל סִבְלוּתָם

רְפָא נָא אֶת שִׁבְרָם וְנַחֵם אֲבֵלוּתָם

כִּי אַתָּה שִׂבְרָם וְאַתָּה אֱיָלוּתָם

חַדֵּשׁ יָמֵינוּ כִּימֵי קַדְמוֹנַי

וְלֹא תֹאמַר צִיּוֹן עֲזָבַנִי יְיָ

Tisha B'Av

2010-07-19T10:17:00.001-04:00

I don't want a restored monarchy

I don't want another big slaughter house

I don't want to live in a theocracy

I keep reading and hearing the most delusional things about the temple era from religious Jews.

"There was achdut (unity) then"

"There was justice then"

"There was everything good you can think of back then!"

Hmmmm well....
Let's just say it wasn't exactly heaven on Earth back in the day. Only someone who has never touched a history book (or a Tanakh!) can seriously say that they want to "go back to the way things were"

People have a sort of idealized version of what things were like when the Temple was standing so let's set some things straight.

First Temple Era

If the prophets are any guide then this must have been the most blood drenched, pestilence ridden, sexually decadent epoch in human history. I'm not quite sure why anyone would want to return to the way things were in the First Temple Era when autocratic kings slaughtered dissidents and barely anyone was interested in keeping the Law of Moshe.

Second Temple Era
Okay at least there's no idol worship. YAY! And everyone is keeping the Torah law more or less so this perhaps is a more inspiring time period for religious Jew. Wrong! Vicious politics, fluctuating regimes, various massacres and internecine warfare characterized this era of Judaism. Not much of a golden age if you ask me.

So when people say things like "well we pray for the return of the Beit Hamikdash so there will be once again achdut in klal yisrael!" I make a sarcastic snort at this lack of historical knowledge.

So nu what's it all about?

These sort of things often tempt me to throw up my hands in despair in the face of the ubiquitous stupidity. However perhaps we can understand Tisha B'Av in a less fundamentalist manner. The best I can come up with, , is we pray for the myth (not meant derisively at all) of the Temple Era. In other words the reality is the Temple Era was not really special at all. People got along with their lives pretty much the same Temple or not (besides Pesach barbecues and all) However in the Jewish collective memory the Temple Eras have been remembered as an idyllic age an age of peace, justice and all the other good things all represented by this one building - The Beit Hamikdash. This is the myth of the Beit Hamikdash and the Temple Era and in a sense it is more real than the actual facts.

Every time a Jew was persecuted or suffered in our long and arduous history s/he has longed for the lost age of the Temple. To the oppressed Jew the flawed diaspora was merely a stop off point, a minor interruption in the grand plan. All would be set right and returned to "it's former glory." Was there a former glory? Not at all. But the idea of a long lost age became a reality in the memory of the Jewish people. Just as we are affected by the real events in our history so too we are affected by the myths in our national memory.

The idea of a mere return to a once glorious and ideal age is a very meaninful idea. And is a worthwhile symbol to hold onto. Symbols need not be real in the historical sense - as long as they continue to give us meaning today they are fictions worth retaining. (EXCEPT WHEN YOU'RE STUDYING HISTORY! THEN MYTHS GET YOU NOWHERE!) It is the false - yet beautiful memory of a once perfect age that has contributed to Jewish survival throughout the eras and has culminated in the Jewish state (which I, Zionist that I am, think is a mostly good thing)

So, if you insist on crying on Tisha B'Av cry for the myth of a glorious age and pray that that symbol of a lost past will one day become a modern reality. But for God's sake if I hear one more inane comment about "if only we had a big slaughterhouse!" and continue to hear people taking the notion of a "Perfect Temple Era" seriously, I might just lose my stomach for the seuda hamafseket.

(Hopefully you'll focus on important things like social justice and peace instead of rubbish like a theocracy and a house where a ravenous YHWH can finally get some food to eat, unfortunately the kinnot seem to focus on many of those themes)

Once I'm at it let me rant a little more about Tisha B'Av

Anyone who says that Tisha B'Av is the day we mourn ALL Jewish tragedies is spewing BS. How many kinnot are about the frikkin' temple? Like 40 or 50.

And how many about the Holocaust, the Crusades, the Spanish Inquisition, The Takh V'Tat massacres, the progroms and all the other bad things that have happened to us? Maybe like 5 or 6.

Gimme a break Tisha B'Av is about the temple and almost nothing else.

And my final rant:

Who's fault is it that the Temple got destroyed? Hmmm? Maybe it had a little something to do with the religious fundamentalist zealots who deluded themselves into thinking they would beat the Roman Empire in a revolt. Nah that can't be it it's all the Romans fault. Evil Romans! How dare you put down a revolt in one of your provinces! Have you no heart O Romans? Why are you so cruel to us poor little Jews?

At least that seems to be the theme of most kinnot - Evil, Barbaric, Heartless Romans mercilessly attack quiet, innocent, little Jews.

I would much rather mourn something that wasn't our fault.

Have a "Happy" Tisha B'av! And try not to asphyxiate from the fumes of the people who took the nine days too seriously.

There is a Hell In Judaism

2010-07-17T23:09:00.005-04:00

Picture: The Valley of Hinnom from where the Hebrew Hell - "Gehennom" gets its name

Even if its a little less eternal than the Christian Hell Judaism still has a Hell. Fine it's more of a purgatory but its still a place where "the bad folks go when they die ... a land of fire and fry."

Wherever I go I meet Jews saying "there is no Hell in Judaism". To which I say "What Talmud have you been reading?"

In the Tanakh There is no real Hell of sinners burning (there is sinner burning - just not in a special place) there is merely some sort of gloomy underworld/afterlife which we hear very little about but apparently you can summon dead prophets from there. However the Tanakh is not Judaism. Judaism is the Tanakh+Talmud. Biblical religion was a lot different than Judaism.

Reform Judaism (correct me if I'm wrong) does not believe in Hell. But that does not mean that there is "no Hell in Judaism" it simply means "We Reform Jews don't currently believe in Hell even though our ancestors did."

I'm not such a fan of Hell because it is clear the the Rabbis of the Gemara took it literally (Gehennom- the Hebrew word for Hell is a location outside of Jerusalem where the entrance of Hell is supposed to be) and because I'm skeptic.

Maybe I'm misreading the situation but it seems that more modern thinking Jews find the idea of Hell rather unpalatable and therefore have decided that "it's not part of Judaism." If this is indeed the case then I have to disagree with this "whitewashing" of our religion. One should not be embarrassed that our ancestors believed in these things even if we don't, and say things like "There is no Hell in Judaism" when there clearly was.

The words of Achad Ha'am come to mind.

In his article נחלת אבות (Inheritance of Fathers) He discusses an article written by a contemporary reformer who said that we must repudiate the Shulkhan Aruch, because it contains superstitions and magic (which it does) and he says that we must "ולהכריז בפה מלא ובכל עת, שאין זו תורתנו". ("announce with a full mouth at every time THIS IS NOT OUR TORAH")

He says:

היה הספר המתאים ביותר לרוח עמנו לפי מצבו וצרכיו באותם הדורות שקבּלוהו עליהם ועל זרעם. ואם נכריז עליו "שאין זו תורתנו", תהיה הכרזתנו מתנגדת אל האמת. כי אמנם זו היא תורתנו בצורה שקבּלה בהכרח בסוף ימי הבינַים, כמו שהתלמוד הוא תורתנו בצורה שקבּלה בסוף ימי הקדם, וכמו שהמקרא הוא תורתנו בצורה שקבּלה בהיות העם עוד חי חיים לאומיים בארצו; שלש אלה יחד אינן אלא שלש נקודות שונות בדרך התפתחותו של עצם אחד – של רוח האומה הישׂראלית – בהסכם למצבו וצרכיו בתקופות שונות.

(The Shulchan Aruch) was the most fitting book for the spirit of our nation according to its situation and needs in those generations when it was accepted. And if we declare “This is not our Torah” our declaration will be untrue. Because this is indeed our Torah in the form that it was accepted at the end of the Middle Ages … (The Torah, Talmud and Shulchan Aruch) are three different points in the evolution of one thing-of the spirit of the Jewish nation-in accordance with its situation and needs in different eras.

So even if you are a Reform Jew or a skeptic or whatever, you should not say there is no Hell in Judaism when in fact there historically is. Just because you don't like the idea, and don't believe in it does not mean that you have to whitewash the less palatable bits of our past. One can have his/her own modern views without pretending that the past did not happen. Judaism is more than just your current Jewish belief (whatever that mey be) - it is a long tradition of many very different views and ideas which all are included in "Judaism". So there is a Hell in Judaism even if you practice a form of Judaism which does not have a Hell.

Man is not the Purpose of the Universe According to the Rambam

2010-07-15T09:51:00.005-04:00

I was reading the Moreh Nevuchim and I got to this chapter(Part III Chapter 25) where the Rambam explains that it is silly to say that God had no purpose in creation and surely God had something in mind even if we're not actually sure what it is.

Then he says something interesting:

Know that the difficulties which lead to confusion in the question what is the purpose of the Universe or of any of its parts, arise from two causes: firstly, man has an erroneous idea of himself, and believes that the whole world exists only for his sake; secondly, he is ignorant both about the nature of the sublunary world, and about the Creator's intention to give existence to all beings whose existence is possible, because existence is undoubtedly good.

Wow I always was taught that Judaism believes that the world was created for man. Does the Rambam disagree?

Basically the Rambam ends off with a תיקו and says God is wise, so the universe must have a purpose, but we don't really know what it is.

Edit:

The Rambam discusses this in more detail in Part III Chapter 13

But of those who accept our theory that the whole Universe has been created from nothing, some hold that the inquiry after the purpose of the Creation is necessary, and assume that the Universe was only created for the sake of man's existence, that he might serve God. Everything that is done they believe is done for man's sake; even the spheres move only for his benefit, in order that his wants might be supplied . . .

. . .on examining this opinion as intelligent persons ought to examine all different opinions, we shall discover the errors it includes. Those who hold this view, namely, that the existence of man is the object of the whole creation, may be asked whether God could have created man without those previous creations, or whether man could only have come into existence after the creation of all other things. If they answer in the affirmative, that man could have been created even if, e.g., the heavens did not exist, they will be asked what is the object of all these things, since they do not exist for their own sake but for the sake of something that could exist without them?

[SH: Think about the modern question of why did God waste so much time making everything evolve slowly if man is the ultimate purpose of the universe]

I consider therefore the following opinion as most correct according to the teaching of the Bible, and best in accordance with the results of philosophy; namely, that the Universe does not exist for man's sake, but that each being exists for its own sake, and not because of some other thing. Thus we believe in the Creation, and yet need not inquire what purpose is served by each species of the existing things, because we assume that God created all parts of the Universe by His will; some for their own sake, and some for the sake of other beings, that include their own purpose in themselves. In the same manner as it was the will of God that man should exist, so it was His will that the heavens with their stars should exist, that there should be angels, and each of these beings is itself the purpose of its own existence. . .

. . .You must not be mistaken and think that the spheres and the angels were created for our sake. Our position has already been pointed out to us, "Behold, the nations are as a drop of a bucket" (Isa. xl. 15). Now compare your own essence with that of the spheres, the stars, and the Intelligences, and you will comprehend the truth, and understand that man is superior to everything formed of earthly matter, but not to other beings; he is found exceedingly inferior when his existence is compared with that of the spheres, and a fortiori when compared with that of the Intelligences.

The Orthodox Theory of Everything

2010-07-14T12:12:00.002-04:00

Kid: "Rebbi what is our purpose in this world?"

Rabbi:Well we are here to gain schar (reward) for olam haba(the world to come). God is omnibenevolent therefore he created a situation where mankind kind can receive eternal reward."

Kid: But why do we have to work for our reward? Why can't God just give it to us for free?

Rabbi: "Excellent question! The Ramchal (Rav Moshe Chaim Luzzato) explains that God cannot just give us reward for free. God wants to give us the maximum possible reward. In life one gets more enjoyment from things that are earned as opposed to things granted for free. If God were to reward us undeservedly we would feel embarrassed at such utterly gratuitous kindness. This idea is called Nahama DeKisufa (Bread of Embarrassment)

Therefore God made olam hazeh (this world) as a place where we can work to obtain our Gan Eden and be satisfied with the knowledge that we have truly earned our place there."

Most, people are satisfied with this explanation and feel that they have just heard something very profound. But let's go a little further

Kid: Rabbi, I have another question, God is omnipotent right?

Rabbi: Of course!

Kid: Well, in that case why didn't God excersize his omnipotence and create humans who didn't feel embarassed at undeserved reward. Your entire argument essentially puts a limitation on God no?

Rabbi: Ermmm....

Disclaimer: This is a frequently used argument in the Yeshiva world. I have never heard anyone Modern Orthodox use this "argument" but maybe I've just been fortunate to be shielded from such stupidity from supposedly "Modern" people.

I'm not sure if the Ramchal was the first to formulate this argument. Does anybody know who originally came up with the idea of Nahama DeKisufa?

Have I misunderstood Nahama DeKisufa? The above was how it was presented to me (and I think it is how the Ramchal presents it)

The moral of the story is religious people have no idea what's going on anymore than non-religious people. It would be great if more religious people admitted to the limitations of their knowledge.

The Two Types of Religious Apologetics

2010-07-13T08:26:00.000-04:00

There are two things that religious apologists need to deal with

1. How to prove their religions

Most religions struggle with the fact that they have very little evidence of the divine in general and their specific revealed religion in particular. I think this has become a more acute problem in the modern era when atheism has become a rather legitimate intellectual position. In the Middle Ages you basically just had to show how stupid the other religions were and then your religion won by default. (Think Kuzari) Everyone basically assumed that A. There was a God and B. He had something to say. It was merely a question of figuring out which of the books was REALLY from God. Nowadays even if you believe in a God which is already a rather difficult thing to prove, what's stopping you from believing in Deism or a sort of God of the scientists? In short why is it more logically sensible to believe in MY religion rather than NOTHING.

It's basically impossible to prove revealed religions. And in our science saturated age the religious person is faced with the difficult problem of how to justify holding onto his or her religion when he or she has already accepted a more skeptical approach when it comes to other fields of inquiry.

2. How to deflect direct challenges to the religion

Atheism challenges religion in general. Evolution challenges Genesis and the primacy of man. Textual criticism, modern morality and history challenge the divinity of the Bible. Much of apologetics is dedicated to deflecting these challenges to religion. Some apologetics are more successful than others. But the fact is that every religion -no matter how ridiculous-manages to cope. No religion AFAIK has ever died out from modernity.

I find it really irksome when religious Jews scoff that skeptics are just ignorant of their apologetics and that everyone must realize that all the questions to Judaism have been answered. Yes they all have been "answered" but one must realize that the second form of apologetics is only really meaningful if one accepts the religion in question as true in the first place. If all religions are able to answer questions posed to them then "your answers" are only better if your religion is somehow more true than theirs which brings us back to square one and the question of how do you "prove" or even tip the scales in favor of your religion?

My impression from my limited knowledge of the subject is that most apologetics in the Jewish world and probably in other religions are of the second variety. Maybe its because the "proving" a religion is too hard. Maybe its because most writers of apologetics don't have any real doubts. I don't know. The problem is that the second type of apologetics is predicated on the first.

If anyone were to prove Judaism or any other religion or even demonstrate the likelihood of it being true then the second form of "deflectory" apologetics would be justified. But since the best Judaism has is the Kuzari proof which is merely an opiate for the Jewish masses, we haven't even been able to get off the ground.

Anybody involved in deflective apologetics is already assuming their religion is true. And since no one has very satisfactorily succeeded in the modern era with the first type of apologetics assuming your religion is true is rather unjustified logically speaking.

So perhaps the difference between the deflective apologist and the skeptic is not so much the quality of the apologetics themselves as much as the fact that the one assumes the religion to be true from the onset and the other doesn't.

The main skeptic argument is not any explicit attack on religion but rather the rather damning lack of evidence in support of religion in general not to mention MY religion.