R' Hirsch against Kabbalah

I was reminded of these quotes by a conversation I had yesterday (you know who you are!).

The good Kantian that Hirsch was he could never accept all these other world that Jewish mystics dream up, to escape to.

What should have been eternal, progressive development was considered a stationary mechanism and the inner significance and concept thereof as extra-mundane dream worlds. . . Practical Judaism which comprehended in its purity, would perhaps have been impregnated with the spiritual became in it, through misconception, a magical mechanism, a means of influencing or resisting theosophic worlds and anti-worlds (N.L., p. 187).

Oh, but for those extra-mundane dream worlds! I must say, I can't be against them as much as R' Hirsch albeit that my sentiments being rather the same. In fact, I'm always quite clear the problem is not with kabbalistic, mystical or chassidic ideas themselves. Then again, maybe it is with those, but not against the sources and beliefs they derive from. The problem is when these original beliefs are taken out of context and turned into something quite alien. They are shorn free of their halachic or aggadic context and made into pseudo-philosophical beliefs. Same words, different beliefs. But anyway, the point is that 'in their place' they... well.. have a place.

The problem that I do have with these beliefs, in common with R' Hirsch, is not simply theory but how it affects the Jewish attitude to the to man, to the world, to G-d and thus, to our task:

A perverted intellect comprehended the institutions which were designed and ordained for the internal and external purification and betterment of man as mechanical, dynamical, or magical formulas for the up-building of higher worlds, and . . . thus the observances meant for the education of the spirit to a nobler life were but too frequently degraded into mere amuletic or talismanic performances (N.L., pp. 9-100).

Kabbalistic views of other worlds, as expounded through current Chassidic and Charedi Judaism, takes away from Halachic Judaism. This is not to say practically, because shemura matzot and all, mystics tend to be extremely strict in halacha (or at least ritualistic elements anyway). They do the acts, as R' Hirsch says above, but what is the quality of the acts? Halachic Judaism frames our attitudes and world-view in a particular way. Now, in this, sense Kabbalah often leads away from what Halachic Judaism teaches us is the main focal point of G-d's will for us: THIS WORLD. As R' Wurzburger (tzatzal) says:

Since, according to Halakhic Judaism, it is our task to seek to encounter God’s presence primarily in the lower realms of being (ikkar shekhinah ba-tahtonim), we must not escape from this world by a flight into transcendental spheres. The human task is to create an abode for God in the here-and-now

Thinking of mitzvot in terms 'other worlds' makes them 'mere amuletic or talismanic performances'; perhaps ways to get our seventy virgins in heaven!

Proof that man evolved from fish...

OLD WOMAN

BLOB FISH (Psychrolutes marcidus)

That is what I call incontrovertbile proof. Suck on that toothless creatures.

Why did so few Talmudic rabbis win the Nobel Prize for Literature?

....apart from of course it wasn't around. But that's a minor point I believe (c.f. the Midrash on Tractate Nobelim)

In English at school they always told you to describe things so you could imagine them. Build up the characters. Set the scene. Have long-winded, really annoying, irrelevant descriptions about stuff that has absolutely nothing to do with anything. Okay, so they didn't say the last one but that was the (esoteric) ikkar. That's why I never read much, the literature was too "good" (and by "good" read snotty, pretentious, A* at English). No, I always preferred a book to have a plot, at least of sorts. So that counts out Catch 22: I struggled on to page 150 and there was not a single thing that had happened. Honest! It's through action and dialogue that you really learn about character, not through telling me about character.

The Rabbis in the Talmud, on the other hand, well.... they weren't French existentialists or self-styled radical philosophers; let's put it that way. Not really an artistic bone in their body. They go for the main plot elements, and the main plot elements only. The extreme opposite of Catch 22, and perhaps too much the opposite.

The following story made me laugh. It follows from a discussion about how long men can be away from home (studying) and away from their wives without permission. The halacha according to mishna and Palestinian Talmud is 30 days without exception (and then should stay at least one, probably two months at home). The Babylonian Talmud, however, goes to great lengths, presumably to justify existing practice, and relies on a minority opinion of (guess who?) Rabbi Eliezer which allows them to go away for 'two or three' (Talmudic for 'a few'). However, it is still not 'correct behaviour' to ignore your wife (!) as the following story makes clear:

Rav Rehume would regularly visit his wife every year on the Eve of Yom Kippur. One day, his studies absorbed him. His wife was waiting, "Now he will come, Now he will come". He did not come. She became upset, and a tear fell from her eye. He was sitting on the roof. The roof collapsed under him, and he died

The main story arc:

SHE THOUGHT HE'D COME

HE DIDN'T COME

SHE WAS UPSET

HE DIED

Get it? GET IT? You ignore your wife, YOU DIE. She cries, YOU DIE. (If you are going to study on roof, and you haven't had a civil engineer in, YOU DIE.) GET IT?.

Now of course there is a bit of irony which ups the literature points a bit. Clearly he didn't study too far away as otherwise a day engrossed in study wouldn't have stopped him getting home. Even so, he missed his 'regular' yearly visit. YOU DIE

There is a bit of emotion. The heart rendering moment, a rabbinical extravagance, when 'a tear fell from her eye'; I was almost in tears. THE DESPERATION... and moving on...YOU DIE (probably helped the wife).

But all in all, it's to the point. Not going to win a Nobel Prize. Zero marks for subtlety. But it's too the point. And more happens here than in the whole of 'Ushpizin'. You can't say fairer than that

Kiruv proofs: Rambam and Rav Hirsch speak out

Rambam, the master of criticism, speaks out against the popular theologians of his day, the so called defenders of the faith.  He criticises the Mutakallemim and the method of the Kalam philosophy.  These are mostly 'Mohammadean' but was very worried about the rise of such philosophy 'amongst our co-religionists'.  He thinks the right way to respond to such people  is to say to them: "'Will you mock at Him, as you mock at man?' for their words are indeed nothing but mockery."  These are the people who in trying to bolster religion bring all sorts of 'proofs' to demonstrate the fundamentals of our faith. 

 

In the specific case I will draw from here they try to prove that the world was created (sound familiar?).  He says that "all the proofs of creation have weak points, and cannot be considered as convincing except by those who do not know the difference between a proof, a dialectical argument, and a sophism".  [Proof of the soul kind of misses the point of why we hold the belief, don't they?; it is not something that simply 'is' but something we are called on to be]. In all cases the proofs are "questionable because propositions have been employed that have never been proved".  [As you know, 600,000 people couldn't have lied about the revelation, but on whose authority do we accept that there were that many people? The thing whose very truth we are trying to establish?]  The mistaken tactics of these mediaeval kiruv workers include  mistaking the imaginable for the possible. [Of course one can imagine that G-d created the fossils a few thousand years ago, but really? Really really?]

 

But hey, what's the problem?  If people end up believing the right things, who care about the method they get there?  Turn a blind eye.  They have grown up 'children of the gentiles' .   They want proofs, give them proofs.  But Rambam very well sums up the danger of such an approach:

 

I will not deceive myself, and consider dialectical methods as proof; and the fact that such a proposition has been proved by a dialectical argument will never induce me to accept that proposition, but, on the contrary, will weaken my faith in it and cause me to doubt it.  For when we understand the fallacy of a proof, our faith in the proposition itself is shaken.  It is therefore better that a proposition which cannot be demonstrated be received as an axiom, or that one of the two opposite solutions be accepted on authority

A proof is not only not possible but undesirable!  Here he is not criticising 'dialectical arguments'.  These are the kind of arguments that help you 'see' the world in one way rather than other [the glasses through which the world is seen in correct focus].  Ultimately proofs where there is none, will lead to the destruction of the basic axioms of Jewish belief.  It will fundamentally misunderstand what they are.  These are the principles by which we understand everything else.  Why put forward a fallacious argument that in the end leads to doubt about the very propositions we are trying to protect?  Rambam saw it as a major task to bring down such proofs along with the proofs of the alternatives (in this case the eternity of the world).  Both fundamentally misunderstand the role of such doctrines.

 

As ever, R' Hirsch puts the points beautifully:

 

What is the use of torturing the youthful mind with "proofs" of the existence of G-d... and the rest of what is called rational religion or rational theology?  In reality the maturest mind of a philosopher knows no more about the essence of G-d than the simple mind of the child; nor is it necessary for the moral behaviour of man in this world to know more than the Torah tells us about G-d.  It is not the longing for the world beyond which is the essence of Jewish piety; it is.... to use all the material and spiritual means at our disposal for the noble and enobling purpose of the great edifice of mankind which G-d wants to erect from the generations of the human family.

 

The 'knowledge' of G-d that the Torah gives us isn't the kind of knowledge which waits approval by proof or evidence.  Nor is it the kind we would expect to be.  Is creation simply teaching us some lame 'fact' about how old the world happens to be?  Have those master theologians happened to stumble upon and discover that we are made of a 'spiritual substance' which all those ignoramuses have somehow happened to miss?  A* for your history lesson about that little rock in the middle of the Sinai dessert.  No these aren't facts awaiting discovery but the very starting point of our search:

 

The basis of your knowledge of G-d does not rest on belief, which can, after all, allow us an element of doubt... [The] fundamental truths accordingly are completely out of the realm of the mere believing or thinking and are irrefutable facts which must serve as the starting point of all our other knowledge with the same certainty as our own existence and the existence of the material world we see about us.

 

Hirsch rather runs amok with the notion of 'fact' and especially 'irrefutable facts'.  Nevertheless the point holds, that 'knowledge of G-d' is the very means by which we frame our experiences and our knowledge.  One doesn't wait upon proof of some vague philosophical concept of 'physical world' before acting on it (philosophers have tried unsuccessfully for centuries). [ We don't proof we have eyes by looking for it.  The eyes is not 'in the visual field' but is the very thing that sees.]  It is as Rambam says (if we do have to be philosophical) an axiom.  This might all be nonsense, but that's the very point... If its wrong to believe in G-d or creation (etc) it is not because its false but because it's nonsense.  Either acting upon G-d's word 'makes sense' or is simply a condition of madness.  I keep using the metaphor of sight: either these doctrines are the right prescriptions for our eyes or they are fundamentally blurred.

 

I've got a bit philosophical here, and I don't want to make it seem that I have tried to make it clear what the roles of these doctrines are in Judaism.  Or why we should hold them (as opposed to thinking they are nonsense).  Or what the beliefs lead to.  In fact, I haven't shown much.  But kiruv methods of 'proof' are fundamentally misguided, practically, theoretically and Judaically.  Practically because they will lead us to doubt the fundamentals of faith.  Theoretically because the arguments are logically fallacious.  Judaically, (and this is what I haven't claimed to show) because they miscontrue those very beliefs they aim to defend.

When so little can be done

A couple of months back the excitement was palpable, well it was for me.  Yet no-one else seemed that bothered at the revolution that was taking place.  Robert Mugabe was defeated.  One tyrant down.  No-one including me was so naive to think that Robert Mugabe would go without a fuss, yet the pressure to go seemed overwhelming.  Yet quietly and without (relatively speaking) fuss, he managed to keep hold of his grip on power.  He let the waters settle but managed to stay in the race on a legal technicality (alright.. his opponent didn't have enough to defeat him but still)! 

Then quietly and without much international fuss he starts to murder people and drive others out of their homes right in the pubic eye.  And now the opposition party has pulled out (citing unfree and unfair elections), Mugabe gets to be upset that the average Zimbabwean is deprived of his/her vote.  And what happens... China, Russia and South Africa for the first time agree to a non-binding, watered down resolution.  As if Mugabe could care about a UN resolution, economic sanctions (he's not affected or not being part of the commonwealth  (I'm sure his loyalty to the queen is minimal).

Maybe I should write a letter to my MP and get an emphatic statement read in parliament.  Or maybe I should get depressed about the state of the world and be apathetic and think about me.  Or maybe just pray.  Of course my real instinct is to blat him. Wipe him out.  Diplomacy is great and all but that only works with someone who gives a damn.  What possible advantage does he get from it?  But violence, is that the answer... if you wipe out one dictator there are ten more to take his place.  And what does that say about the rule of law?

It's an easy life for tyrants.  Maybe I should consider my future career prospects.  Hmm

Quote of the day: 30th April

Soren Kierkegaard:

Truth always rests with the minority, and the minority is always stronger than the majority, because the minority is generally formed by those who really have an opinion, while the strength of a majority is illusory, formed by the gangs who have no opinion—and who, therefore, in the next instant (when it is evident that the minority is the stronger) assume its opinion ... while Truth again reverts to a new minority.

Judaism and other religions: a few sources

1

Exod. Rabbah 15:23: It is written: Let them be only thine own, and not strangers' with thee (Prov. 5:17). The Holy One blessed by He said, "I do not warn idolators concerning idolatry, but you," as it is said: Ye shall make you no idols (Lev. 26:1). Only to you have I given judgment, for it says: Hear this, O ye priests, and attend, ye house of Israel, and give ear, O house of the King, for unto you pertaineth the judgment (Hos. 5:1).

2

"In our days nobody heeds these the laws of discrimination found in the Talmud, neither gaon, rabbi, disciple, hasid."- The Meiri

3

Their acceptance of the practical duties incumbent upon all men by the Will of God distinguishes these nations from the heathen and idolatrous nations of the Talmudic era. (Principles of Education, "Talmudic Judaism and Society,” 225-7)- Rabbi Hirsch

4

“I ask from You that Your Shekhinah should not rest anymore on the nations of the world and we will be separate from all other nations. (Commentary to Exodus 33:16)- Rashi

5

At the beginning, Israel is connected to the nations like a shell around a fruit. At the end, the fruit is separated from the shell completely and Israel is separated from them. (GevuratHashem 23)- Mahral

6

all the deeds of Jesus of Nazareth and this Arab [Muhammed] who arose after him, they are only to prepare the way for the Messiah-King and to order (le-taqqen) the whole world to serve the Lord together, as it is said in Scripture, "For then I will turn to the peoples (el ha-ammim) with clear speech (safah berurah) to call all of them in the name of the Lord and to serve Him with one accord" (Zephaniah 3:9).- Maimonides/ Mishna Torah

7

It is necessary to study all the wisdoms in the world, all ways of life, all different cultures, along with the ethical systems and religions of all nations and languages, so that, with greatness of soul, one will know how to purify them all. (Arpelei Tohar 33)- Rav Kook

8

The Torah calls Israel a treasured nation. However, this does not imply, as some have mistakenly assumed, that Israel has a monopoly on God's love and favor. On the contrary, Israel's most cherished ideal is that of the universal brotherhood of mankind. (Nineteen Letters of Ben Uzziel, R’ Hirsch)

9

Through dispersion among gentiles, [Judaism] gathers and incorporates the fragments of truth wherever it finds them scattered- Rabbi Elijah Benamozegh (1823-1900)

10

"God permitted to every people something he forbade to others... God sends a prophet to every people according to their own language." Nathaniel ibn Fayumi

11a

Original Edition, 2002

Judaism is a particularist monotheism. It believes in one God but not in one religion, one culture, one truth. The God of Abraham is the God of all mankind, but the faith of Abraham is not the faith of all mankind.(37)

Revised Edition, 2003

[It] is a particularist monotheism. It believes in one God but not in one exclusive path to salvation. The God of the Israelites is the God of all mankind, but the demands made of the Israelites are not asked f all mankind.

11b

Original Edition, 2002

The radical transcendence of God in the Hebrew Bible means nothing more or less than that there is a difference between God and religion. God is universal, religions are particular. Religion is the translation of God into a particular language and thus into the life of a group, a nation, a community of faith. In the course of history, God has spoken to mankind in many languages: through Judaism to Jews, Christianity to Christians, Islam to Muslims

Revised Edition, 2003

The radical transcendence of God in the Hebrew Bible means that the Infinite lies beyond our finite understanding. God communicates in human language, but there are dimensions of the divine that must forever elude us. As Jews we believe that God has made a covenant with a single people, but that does not exclude the possibility of other peoples, cultures and faiths finding their own relationship with God within the shared Naohide laws. These laws constitute, as it were, the depth grammar of the human experience of the divine: of what it is to see the world as God’s work, and humanity as God’s image.

R' Sacks

12

Classically, the Christian position was the Messiah came. Classically, the Jewish answer was, the Messiah didn't come…Both sides tacitly admit the truth of the other's claim, in part…. For example, Christians, in talking about the Second Coming, admit tacitly that the Messiah didn't finish the job and that the world is still not redeemed and perfect… Yet the Jewish Sabbath is a kind of mini-messianic world. There are a hundred ways that Jews act on Shabbat as if the Messiah has come already, as if the world is perfect… Jesus is as a failed messiah… the image of Jesus on the cross dying is a classic image of failure. He could have flexed his muscles and wiped out all the Romans. Instead, it was a statement of humility and of unfinished business.- Rabbi Irving ‘Yitz’ Greenberg

13

Genesis Chp 10 “The whole earth was of one language and of a common purpose… And they said ‘Come, let us build a city, and a tower with its tops in the heaven, and let us make a name for ourselves lest we be dispersed across the whole earth’… Come let us descend and there confuse their language, that they should not understand one another’s language”

14

The great faiths constitute different languages of perception, imagination and sensibility. They are only partially translatable into one another… Each has its own resonances and nuances of meaning. There is, after Babel and before the end of days, no universal meta-language. This means that there will be some things we will never fully understand because they can be said only in a language which is not our own.- Rabbi Sacks

15

RABBINICAL COUNCIL OF AMERICA- 1964

We are pleased to note that in recent years there has evolved in our country as well as throughout the world a desire to seek better understanding and a mutual respect among the world's major faiths. The current threat of secularism and materialism and the modern atheistic negation of religion and religious values makes even more imperative a harmonious relationship among the faiths. This relationship, however, can only be of value if it will not be in conflict with the uniqueness of each religious community, since each religious community is an individual entity which cannot be merged or equated with a community which is committed to a different faith. Each religious community is endowed with intrinsic dignity and metaphysical worth. Its historical experience, its present dynamics, its hopes and aspirations for the future can only be interpreted in terms of full spiritual independence of and freedom from any relatedness to another faith community. Any suggestion that the historical and meta-historical worth of a faith community be viewed against the backdrop of another faith, and the mere hint that a revision of basic historic attitudes is anticipated, are incongruous with the fundamentals of religious liberty and freedom of conscience and can only breed discord and suspicion. Such an approach is unacceptable to any self-respecting faith community that is proud of its past, vibrant and active in the present and determined to live on in the future and to continue serving God in its own individual way. Only full appreciation on the part of all of the singular role, inherent worth and basic prerogatives of each religious community will help promote the spirit of cooperation among faiths.

It is the prayerful hope of the Rabbinical Council of America that all inter-religious discussion and activity will be confined to these dimensions and will be guided by the prophet, Micah (4:5) "Let all the people walk, each one in the name of his god, and we shall walk in the name of our Lord, our God, forever and ever."