Jun 30, 2008 3:42 PM
Ari Lamm: Academia is biased, and out to destroy religion!
I finally got a response out of Ari Lamm about why he believes that academia is more biased (or maybe as biased) as religion when it comes to the DH, and why no serious school of single HUMAN authorship has arisen:
There are at least two reasons that I can imagine as to why the scholarly mainstream will never (or at least not soon) venture into "single authorship" territory:
1) Ironically (I suppose), academia - especially in the various fields composing the standard liberal arts curriculum - is most possessive of its orthodoxies. Once an academic field has established its own particular brand of orthodoxy, it becomes akin to a dogma just as in any religion. It is extremely difficult to let go, and that is one of the most basic reasons why it will take generations (if it ever does happen) and a monumental effort on the part of younger scholars to cast off the choke-hold of the DH. I don't see that sort of intellectual "reformation" (pun intended) happening any time soon.
2) Whether academia's cheerleaders like to admit it or not, much of DH scholarship is crucial in allowing the "enlightened" intelligentsia to ridicule the quaintly absurd views of "religious fundamentalists," and other brainless yahoos. If scholars - at least those hostile to religion (I don't have any numbers, but I'd say they AT LEAST make up a vocal minority) - were to come to a consensus whereby they might admit that the Bible (the relevant books, obviously) likely had one author, it would just be a matter of faith-preference to believe in a Divinely authored Torah, rather than a matter of "denying the scholarly consensus and all available evidence."
These, I believe, are the two stand-out reasons why single, non-Divine authorship is not an option for scholars. Does this reflect well upon scholars? No. But that's life... Academia has plenty of other wonderful things to offer (even in the field of "academic" Bible) and believing Jews should be grateful for that.
Absurd in the extreme. However biased academia might be, religions are orders of magnitude more so. Ari Lamm himself, being a religious fundamentalist whose entire lifestyle is based on asserting that God wrote the Torah, is of course tremendously biased. Only someone that biased would prefer to see a global conspiracy & bias in academia rather than admit the blindingly obvious fact that EVERYONE in the entire world can see (except of course for the religious fundamentalists themselves), which is that when you read the Torah, it looks like a composite text.*
If I were a fundie, I would take the following approach to this issue:
Yes, the Bible certainly looks like a composite text, and it is no wonder that academia has declared it such. However, we have a religion which requires it to be a unified text (or at least singler author), and therefore for religious reasons this is what we have to believe, and attempt to show.
That would be more honest at least.
* Just look at the two different responses that Hashem gives after the story of the Meraglim for a great example. Also about 100 other killer examples, including Noach, Korach, Breishis and much, much more. I haven't even read any books on the DH, I don't have much patience for long winded theories about priestly clans. I just read the Chumash (JPS edition). It's staring you in the face. Of course you can kvetch 'answers' to all these things, but kvetchy answers don't impress me.
Jun 30, 2008 10:47 AM
Is the Documentary Hypothesis credible?
Occam's Razor comes up a lot in believer vs. skeptic discussions. For example, skeptics often argue that the DH (or similar) explains most of the textual anomolies in the Bible, therefore it is simpler to believe in the DH rather than a Divinely written book, with all the associated issues. The believers twist the argument back around, arguing that the DH has now become so complex that Occam's Razor should compel you to reject it.
But is Occam's Razor really true? In this paper, the author argues that simpler theories are not neccessarily truer theories. And indeed, the universe itself isn't that 'simple'. If 'simple' was 'true', then the big bang shouldn't ever have gone anywhere. In a world which tends towards ever more complexity, I don't see how intuitively 'simpler' is more true.
Also, it is very hard to define 'simple'. Is God 'simple'? Depends what you mean. That's why I prefer to stay away from the debates about how comlex the DH is (or not), and instead focus on the nature of academic opinion and bias, and who has more credibility, the academics or the religious believers.
True, everyone is at least a little biased, and academics can certainly be wrong. However, when it comes to the fight about the DH (or any theory of composite authorship of the Torah), you really don't need to spend years studying the texts, or going through all the arguments, just like you don't need to spend years studying aerodynamics before you get on a plane.
Instead, all you need to do is look at the two sides in the debate and see which side has more credibility. What factors have to be considered in any analysis of credibility? Training, expertise, familiarity with the subject matter, level of consensus, maturity of theories, any over-riding biases etc etc. So, let's have a look here, and see what we find.
For simplicity (ha!) and accuracy, I'm not going to specify the DH, rather I will just focus on Single vs. Composite authorship. Note that you could in theory believe in Single HUMAN authorship, and likewise you could hold of Multiple 'Divine' authorship, in a Conservative sense that the Bible was Divinely Inspired at a general level, or represents Man's attempt to describe God, or there was some original revelation but it got messed up (Halivni etc). So, Composite authorship doesn't neccesarily destroy Judaism, but it certainly does destroy mainstream Orthodoxy.
Level of agreement
Academia: Global academic concensus that the Bible (first 5 books) are a composite work, composed of earlier works and oral traditions, redacted from 800-500 BCE. Lots of debate about the details though.
Religion: Concensus amongst certain religious sects, notable some sub sects of some Christian denominations, and Orthdox Jewry. However the vast majority of Jews have accepted Composite authorship, and other religions have never accepted the Divinity of the Bible in the first place and have no problems with composite authorship. Islam in theory accepts that Moses wrote the Bible from God, but claims Moses sabotaged it and changed some key stories (e.g. Yitzchak & Yishmael story), so they are not much assistance here.
Conclusion: A lot more agreement in Academia than in religion about the authorship of the Bible. In fact, since we are really only concerned with OJ's beliefs here, it makes sense to only consider Academia vs. OJ. This might seem unfair to OJ, since OJ is only a small subsect of a small religion, whereas academia is global, composed of many religions and cultures, but the OJers themselves insist on having it this way, so who am I to argue.
Expertise
Academia: Trained in linguistics, grammar and comparative religious texts.
OJ: Trained in reading natural hebrew, expansive knowledge of ancient Babylonian and Medieval Jewish (fundamentalist) commentators, expansive, intense, intimate knowledge of all the text.
Conclusion: There are definitely advantages to being able to fluently read Hebrew, and knowing all the meforshim. However, the meforshim, being (a) fundamentalists and (b) not knowledgable of 2000-1000 years of linguistic knowledge and techniques are only useful to a point. Also, OJers are typically not versed in other ancient texts (e.g. Summarian, Ugaritic etc), and therefore are at a significant disadvantage here in analyzing what is essentially an ANE text (eevn according to Chazal - Dibrah Torah Keloshon Bnai Odom). Finally, OJers are trained to read Bible in very specific (traditional) ways, whereas academics have a much broader analytic toolset at their disposal. OJers will argue that their ways of reading are the exact ways the Torah was intended to be read, but this is a matter of faith and certainly not at all provable in any meaningful or academic way.
Conclusion: At best a tie, but arguably the academics are much better placed to analyze the text due to their broader use of techniques, and acceptance of hundreds of years of improved analysis and knowledge.
Bias
Academia: The reigning dogma in academic Bible study is without doubt Composite authorship. In the past 100 years there have been no serious theories or schools which have proposed single (human) authorship. On the other hand, there is no specific reason per se why somebody couldn't propose this, (except that it doesn't look true!). So, while there might be some inertia here, I don't see any strong degree of inherent bias as to why academia couldn't accept single (human) authorship.
OJ: OJ requires belief in Single authorship. Not only that, but halachically you cannot question this. An OJ is educated from birth with an entire worldview which aboslutely hinges on the idea of Single (Divine) authorship. There is no question of an overwhelming bias issue here.
Conclusion: The bias of OJ in asserting Single authorship is overwhelming and cannot be denied.
Verdict
In the area of expertise there can be some debate. However when it comes to consensus and bias clearly academia has exponentally more credibility here than OJ. Therefore, the rational choice is to believe academia. It's a no brainer.
Jun 27, 2008 10:54 AM
Even if God doesn’t exist, I still believe in Him
What is God? Nobody can really describe Him. He is incomprehensible, and anything you say about God is wrong. So what do we love when we love God? What do we fear when we fear God? What do we believe in when we believe in God?
God is all the things that we as humans, and especially that we as Jews, find most important in life. God is the source of meaning, morality and spirituality. We affirm that life has meaning, and is not some pointless venture. We affirm that morality is important, and that we need to strive to be as moral and as ethical as possible. We affirm that we are more than just animals, and we strive for a higher, more spiritual state of being.
None of these things require the existence of a ‘God’ per se, but they do require a willingness to go beyond provable science and cold logic, and believe in something more. Provable science and cold logic shows that this universe is quite possibly (even probably according to some people)a meaningless accident. Yet most people, even many of the militant atheists, try to find meaning in life. The meaning is the ikkar.
Likewise, pretty much everyone promotes ‘morality’ (though of course everyone has a different idea of what morality is). Even the atheists promote morality; in fact many of the new atheist manifestos are full of moralizing and accusations that religions are immoral. Atheists might be fond of calling people ‘mammals’, but even they recognize that we need to be moral, even though from a purely scientific point of view, morality is simply the result of an evolutionary urge and nothing more than that.
Believers might say that they believe in objective morality whereas atheists only believe in subjective morality, but that makes little practical difference to the content of the morality itself, since everyone has a subjective view of what the objective morality code is. And there is no shortage of believers who commit sins against the moral code, or moral atheists. Again, the ikkar is the commitment to morality itself (and hopefully the ‘correct’ morality – but who could ever tell?).
Spirituality is somewhat different. While most people, societies and religions confirm the importance of morality and meaning, when it comes to spirituality, opinions are divided, and not always along religious / secular lines. Some people devote their lives to materialistic pursuits, some to more spiritual pursuits. And I’m not talking about kabalah, mysticism or ‘new age’ spirituality. I’m talking about what we call ‘ruchniyus’, a higher plane of being, where we lift ourselves up from being pleasure seeking materialistic animals, and realize that there are higher goals and pursuits in life. While everyday people might be content with their 50” plasma TV and a giant size bag of potato chips, most of the intellectual elite (and scientific research) confirms that the pursuit of higher ideals is what makes us human (and happier in the long run).
Someone who believes in ‘God’ (obviously with some incorrect image of a guy in the sky, or a fuzzy cloud, or something) can quite happily live a life devoid of any serious meaning, morality or spirituality. Conversely, you can have agnostics or atheists who are highly moral and even spiritual. The ikkar in all of this is the commitment to the ideals themselves, not beliefs in incomprehensible somethings.
I recently heard a speech by someone described as a ‘rising star’ in the MO world, and I was quite appalled. He was a lovely fellow, with great delivery and highly entertaining, and was talking about which religion is the one true religion. He said that while we have differences with other religions (Christianity specifically), and while he rejects AJ Heschels’s view that all religions have partial truth (that was the appaling part), he still thinks we can partner with Christians since we all believe in God (presumably as opposed to atheists or other more secular liberal types), and this is what unites us people of ‘faith’, the 'search for religious truth'. Ironically, he also mentioned how we must fight the radical Islamic Terrorists. Does he not realize that they too believe in God, in fact they probably have more faith than many of us, and are equally searching for religious truth?
This Rabbi is completely wrong. The people we must partner with are the people who share our commitment to meaning, morality and spirituality. The people whose values and morals are similar to ours, or at the very minimum people who have a commitment to values and morals. We have more in common with a moral atheist than with a radical Islamic believer.
Committing to Morality, Meaning & Spirituality is hard enough at the best of times. Committing to Morality, Meaning & Spirituality after you realize that nobody actually knows anything about God (including even God’s ‘existence’) is a hundred times harder. I believe that religious leaders, including our own MO leadership, take the easy way out here, by personifying God to make the concept more concrete. But at the end of the day our values are what is important, not the content of our belief claims. We value Morality, Meaning & Spirituality, and those are the fundamental ikkarim of Judaism too.
If you value these things, then you are with us. If you don’t, then you are not. As to your beliefs about ‘God’, I really don’t care. Whatever your conception of God is, it is entirely incorrect anyway, I guarantee it (certainly according to the Rambam), so it doesn’t really make much difference.
I think we need to move away from the ‘Theist’ / ‘Atheist’ way of looking at things. It’s stupid and irrelevant and completely meaningless. Instead, we should talk about Meaningists and Ameaningists. Moralists and Amoralists. Spiritualists and Aspiritualists.
And of course for all the people on the fence, we have the Agmeaningists, the Agmoralists, and the Agspiritualists.
Jun 25, 2008 11:44 PM
Bill Gates rants about how crap Microsoft is
[Ha! Talk about eating your own dog crap food]
From: Bill Gates
Sent: Wednesday, January 15, 2003 10:05 AM
To: Jim Allchin
Cc: Chris Jones (WINDOWS); Bharat Shah (NT); Joe Peterson; Will Poole; Brian Valentine; Anoop Gupta (RESEARCH)
Subject: Windows Usability Systematic degradation flame
I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don't drive usability issues. Let me give you my experience from yesterday. I decided to download (Moviemaker) and buy the Digital Plus pack ... so I went to Microsoft.com. They have a download place so I went there.
The first 5 times I used the site it timed out while trying to bring up the download page. Then after an 8 second delay I got it to come up. This site is so slow it is unusable. It wasn't in the top 5 so I expanded the other 45. These 45 names are totally confusing. These names make stuff like: C:\Documents and Settings\billg\My Documents\My Pictures seem clear.
They are not filtered by the system ... and so many of the things are strange. I tried scoping to Media stuff. Still no moviemaker. I typed in movie. Nothing. I typed in movie maker. Nothing. So I gave up and sent mail to Amir saying - where is this Moviemaker download? Does it exist?
So they told me that using the download page to download something was not something they anticipated. They told me to go to the main page search button and type movie maker (not moviemaker!). I tried that. The site was pathetically slow but after 6 seconds of waiting up it came.
I thought for sure now I would see a button to just go do the download. In fact it is more like a puzzle that you get to solve. It told me to go to Windows Update and do a bunch of incantations. This struck me as completely odd. Why should I have to go somewhere else and do a scan to download moviemaker?
So I went to Windows update. Windows Update decides I need to download a bunch of controls. (Not) just once but multiple times where I get to see weird dialog boxes. Doesn't Windows update know some key to talk to Windows?
Then I did the scan. This took quite some time and I was told it was critical for me to download 17megs of stuff. This is after I was told we were doing delta patches to things but instead just to get 6 things that are labeled in the SCARIEST possible way I had to download 17meg.
So I did the download. That part was fast. Then it wanted to do an install. This took 6 minutes and the machine was so slow I couldn't use it for anything else during this time. What the heck is going on during those 6 minutes? That is crazy. This is after the download was finished.
Then it told me to reboot my machine. Why should I do that? I reboot every night -- why should I reboot at that time? So I did the reboot because it INSISTED on it. Of course that meant completely getting rid of all my Outlook state.
So I got back up and running and went to Windows Update again. I forgot why I was in Windows Update at all since all I wanted was to get Moviemaker. So I went back to Microsoft.com and looked at the instructions. I have to click on a folder called WindowsXP. Why should I do that? Windows Update knows I am on Windows XP.
What does it mean to have to click on that folder? So I get a bunch of confusing stuff but sure enough one of them is Moviemaker. So I do the download. The download is fast but the Install takes many minutes. Amazing how slow this thing is.
At some point I get told I need to go get Windows Media Series 9 to download. So I decide I will go do that. This time I get dialogs saying things like "Open" or "Save". No guidance in the instructions which to do. I have no clue which to do.
The download is fast and the install takes 7 minutes for this thing. So now I think I am going to have Moviemaker. I go to my add/remove programs place to make sure it is there.
It is not there.
What is there? The following garbage is there. Microsoft Autoupdate Exclusive test package, Microsoft Autoupdate Reboot test package, Microsoft Autoupdate testpackage1. Microsoft AUtoupdate testpackage2, Microsoft Autoupdate Test package3.
Someone decided to trash the one part of Windows that was usable? The file system is no longer usable. The registry is not usable. This program listing was one sane place but now it is all crapped up.
But that is just the start of the crap. Later I have listed things like Windows XP Hotfix see Q329048 for more information. What is Q329048? Why are these series of patches listed here? Some of the patches just things like Q810655 instead of saying see Q329048 for more information.
What an absolute mess.
Moviemaker is just not there at all. So I give up on Moviemaker and decide to download the Digital Plus Package. I get told I need to go enter a bunch of information about myself. I enter it all in and because it decides I have mistyped something I have to try again. Of course it has cleared out most of what I typed.
I try (typing) the right stuff in 5 times and it just keeps clearing things out for me to type them in again. So after more than an hour of craziness and making my programs list garbage and being scared and seeing that Microsoft.com is a terrible website I haven't run Moviemaker and I haven't got the plus package.
The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind. I thought we had reached a low with Windows Network places or the messages I get when I try to use 802.11. (don't you just love that root certificate message?)
When I really get to use the stuff I am sure I will have more feedback.
Jun 24, 2008 1:05 PM
I find it easier to daven for small stuff than for big stuff.
For example, have a look at this prayer dialogue:
Me: Hashem, please don't let X die
God: Why not? Everybody has to die.
Me: Yeah, but X could still live a few more years.
God: You won't want X to die in a few more years either. Anyway, what's so special about X?
Me: Well, I love X and I don't want X to die.
God: Sorry, everybody has to die.
Me: I guess. Thanks anyway.
And contrast it with this:
Me: For God's sake, please let this application work this time!
God: Why should I?
Me: Well, I tried everything. I followed all the instructions, I rebooted, I reinstalled, it really should work. I've done everything possible.
God: OK, fair enough.
Me: Thanks!
And I'm not even kidding.
Jun 23, 2008 11:57 AM
Prayer, or donation to Cancer Research?
Harry Maryles has posted about his grandson’s continued battle with cancer. This story just alternately breaks and warms my heart and we are all anxiously waiting and hoping that there is a happy ending and that the child should have a refuah shlemah. I cannot even imagine what the parents and grandparents are going through. Even though I recently lost a parent to cancer, I sense that having a child with cancer is much worse.
But Harry’s post, in which he asks us all to daven a special tefiloh this week for the child’s recovery, raises a number of intense theological questions for me. To me, this is where the rubber hits the road. We can argue all day long about abstract concepts of morality and ethics, and it's all very entertaining, but praying for a sick person is where fantasy becomes reality (or not).
Leaving aside the issue of whether God exists, and assuming He does (or might), how does this type of prayer work? Does God intefere with nature on a per-request basis?
The standard MO/rational answer (I assume) is that by praying, we become more spiritual, more aware of our deficiencies etc etc and ultimately become more deserving, and therefore maybe our prayers get answered. OK, I guess that kinda makes sense when we pray for ourselves. But how does it work when we pray for others? Even if I somehow improve myself through prayer, how can that help someone else recover from a serious illness? How does it make the other person more deserving?
Is God simply persuaded that if I have a lot of people ‘rooting’ for me, then He should listen? Perhaps it works in a very roundabout way – if many people improve themselves through prayer, then in general God deals more kindly with the world, and less people die from cancer, including (but not necessarily limited to or even directed to) the person you are specifically praying for.
However this put a lot of pressure on people – for every bit of self improvement we do though prayer (or presumably any other self improvement or world improvement activity), we can save someone from dying from cancer. If this is true, then shouldn’t we be davening our hearts out every second for every cancer victim everywhere?
If prayer can truly (or even possibly) help, how can I ever be silent?
Harry says he is sure that prayer has helped. But 100 or even 20 years ago this type of cancer would have been absolutely incurable, even with all the prayers in the world. What is clearly actually helping (we hope) is all the amazing advanced technology and cancer treatments. So, given the choice between praying or donating to cancer research, wouldn't the latter be a better option?
So here is my pledge, I will pray, with the belief (faith) of the possibility that it might somehow help, and I will also donate some money to cancer research, in the knowledge that that will definitely help, if not someone specific, then certainly mankind in general.
Jun 18, 2008 11:34 AM
Symposium: Why people become skeptical
_This is the first post in an ongoing series of guest posts by bloggers from across the Jewish spectrum about why people become skeptical. I left the question fairly open-ended so respondents can address the topic from their own perspectives.
Let me also add in advance, for those who are concerned about these things, that for better or for worse this is not a case of interdenomiskeptical dialogue. This is an example of listening to people with other perspectives, and then responding to those perspectives and then listening to them respond back, and then responding back again.
The first guest post in the series is from Blogger XGH.
People become skeptical when they realize that the global concensus of trained, objective experts in the fields of ancient near east history, egyptology, archeology, comparative religion and biblical studies is the following:
The Bible was composed in multiple layers over many centuries, by various competing priestly groups and others
An Exodus of 2 million people (or anything close) did not happen as described in the Torah
A massive conquest of Israel did not happen as described in Nach
Torah Shebaal Peh is a later invention, designed to explain away the anomolies between actual practice and the older received texts
The 'Messiah' is a later invention
The 'Afterlife' is a later invention
Then, said skeptics become even more skeptical when they discuss the above with Orthodox believers and they realize that the believers are almost all entirely intellectually dishonest when dealing with these issues, unwilling to face the obvious truth that an emotionally biased believer clearly has less credibility than the global concensus of more detached & objective academics.
Jun 17, 2008 3:25 PM
_
And the winner is: Tie between Rabbi Sacks and Rabbi Carmy!
Jun 17, 2008 3:25 PM
_Sonja: Let's say there is no God, and each man is free to do exactly as he chooses. What prevents you from murdering somebody?
Boris: Murder's immoral.
Sonja: Immorality is subjective.
Boris: Yes, but subjectivity is objective.
So we had this long discussion yesterday whether there is such thing as subjective immorality. FedUp claimed there was, but nobody, not even Deg 'I'm so contrarian I'm not' anev, believed him. Orthoprax said something interesting - that in theory there could be some ideal ral state that would be best for all mankind, and that a moral system could in theory be constructed which aims to achieve that ideal state, even though obviously people are subjective and will disagree as to what that ideal state is, and how to get there.
Personally I think this is probably wrong, and that by definition there can't be an ideal state, because who is the arbiter of what 'deal' is? Humanity, and by definition humans are subjective about these things. Claiming there is some platonic ideal state out there sounds suspiciously similar to saying there is a God.
But this isn't that far off from what I was proposing anyway - that we as Jews should believe in morality, and promote our morality as being true. I just wouldn't fool myself into thinking I was being objective. But subjectively objective? Yes.
Jun 15, 2008 12:33 AM
I had a long chat with a LW MO Rabbi recently, and it was quite interesting.
[Note: I know quite a few LW MO Rabbis. You CANNOT guess who this is, so don't try. I promised I wouldn't quote him, so I will obscure any details]
He basically said that the academics make a very strong case for multiple authorship of the Biblical texts we have today, over many centuries, and it was dishonest (or maybe impractical) for (Modern) Orthodoxy to fight this. He thinks we would be better off just accepting this reality, and building from there (kinda like Rav Kook's statement about building the palace of Torah on top of science). We didn't discuss it in depth, but I guess he would go for some kind of 'Divine Inspiration' theory, whereby the core of the Torah is Divinely Inspired, but the texts we have today are composite and (mostly) human written.
Interstingly, a few commenters on Hirhurim mentioned this too: 'Greg' talked about the 'essential content' of the Torah being revealed at Sinai, and 'Moshe Cohn' said we all know that the Stone Chumash (which is in fact all Chumashim) wasn't the text which was given at Sinai, and then 'gray area' mentioned that many Orthodox academics and eductors are exploring ways to integrate all this modern scholarship about the bible and ANE history into OJ.
My sense is that Gil and his friends and authors and commenters and quite a few others either keep this option in 'their back pocket' , or in fact actually believe it themselves, but would never admit that in public. I have talked IN PERSON to a few well known OJ Rabbis who have admitted to me IN PERSON that they don't believe the text we have today is all from God, and that Har Sinai was some essential revelation but not more than that.
I used to think that should be our approach, but then I realized there's no good reason to believe any of that is true either.
And this is where I part with the LW MO Rabbi mentioned above. He thinks we can have a form of OJ where we admit to modern scholarship, but still claim the Torah originated from God and is 'evolving' as part of God's plan. Similar to the way Science & Torah nicks explain evolution.
I say, no. There's no good reason to believe this, and when pressed, he couldn't actually come up with one either, except to say that the Torah contained a lot of wisdom and was great.
Well, I agree the Torah has some good bits, and I think the OJ lifestyle has some very good bits. And I could even make an argument that we should keep halachah and not make any major changes, in the interests of the system and the culture and the benefits thereof.
However, I draw the line at claiming that the Torah is from God. All religion is obviously man made, and nobody knows anything about God. We can't base theology on baseless beliefs.
So my stance is follows (similar to Kaplan):
The God idea is foundational to Judaism. I don't think we can get rid of it and still claim to be Jewish. However 'God' has certainly evolved. In Biblical times He was just a local Deity. Later, He became the only Deity worth worshipping. Then He became the only Deity period. Then he became an abstract concept and certainly not a body.
I think now we all realize that God is incomprehensible, and simply stands for the idea that there is some purpose and meaning to life, and there is 'objective' morality and so on. We all like to personalize and anthropomorphise 'God' and maybe that's ok, but as the Rambam said, it's all ultimately completely and utterly wrong. God isn't like anything you could possibly imagine, and that goes for anything God 'does' too. So I'm OK with God talk, as long as we understand that.
Second, Torah Min Hashamyim is also a foundational belief, so we can't just jettison the whole concept. Instead we need to focus on the fact that there is a lot of good stuff in the Torah (in the broadest sense), and, in as much as that 'good stuff' is in sync with 'what God wants', (i.e. with the ultimate meaning and purpose and morality etc), then it's 'Divine'.
But that's as far as it can go vis-a-vis beliefs. Basically, we have faith that life has meaning, morality is 'objective' and spirituality is a worthwhile goal, and we have faith that Judaism, and especially Orthoprax Judaism, is a very good system which is in sync with those ideals.
I tried to convince a skeptic in shul today of this, but he wasn't buying it. He's too fixated on his new found realization that all religion isn't true and therefore must be thrown out. I think the problem is that when someone frum realizes that the beliefs of OJ are baloney, he starts to think that all Judaism is baloney and can only see the negative.
However you need to approach it from the opposite perspective, that of course all religion is completely man made. (DUH). Then, you look around and say 'Hey! For a system which originated with a bunch of farmers in the desert 3,000 years ago, it's not half bad. Actually it's pretty darn good (as religions go), and certainly much better than a lot of other religions (and secular lifestyles) I can think of.
Does this mean we have to keep every halachah religiously? No, but then you dont have to even if you are 100% frum. You choose to. And I wouldn't neccessarily recommend going crazy about all the details, especially with some of the ritual stuff. But I think there's a lot of a value in Shabbat, Yom Tov, Kashrut, Learning, Loshon Horah and really pretty much everything else too. But that's all the subject of another post.
Jun 14, 2008 11:33 PM
Intellectual Dishonesty of the (RW) Modern Orthodox
I continue to be amazed (and repulsed to be honest) by the intellectual dishonesty displayed by the (typically RW) Modern Orthodox. These are people who should know better, but since they are emotionally beholden to their beliefs, they spout the most utter nonsense.
Maybe 'intellectually dishonest' is the wrong word here - the emotional dependence and attachment to their beliefs forces them to defend what in reality is quite indefensible, hence the twisted contortions they have to resort to. But don't take my word for it, I have the evidence in black and white, and you can judge for yourselves. [All quotes taken from this post and associated comment thread].
Why bother with this? I dunno, maybe it's a kind of voyeurism. But a peek into the minds of fundamentalists is quite revealing, if a little scary. Makes me wonder if fundamentalist religion is somewhat dangerous. True, religious Jews have never really been guilty of anything heinous, at least no more so than the average, but the fact that religion forces you to 'check your brain at the door' is a cause for concern. Then again, religious fundamentalism can motivate people to be good, so maybe it all cancels out in the end. Tzarich Iyun.
Here is the quote from the post which started it all:
If you are willing to stipulate the likelihood of miracles in the biblical period, as most people considering religion are willing to do, then the probabilities change and the two options become fairly equal. In fact, given the lack of certainty inherent in the fields of history and archeology (discussed in the next chapter), perhaps some people will find the truth of the Torah to be more compelling than any other option.
This is quite an absurd point. The likelihood of miracles? Since when? Has anyone ever verified a bona fide miracle? Of course not. So given current evidence, what's the likelyhood of a given event being a miracle? Zero. Unless of course the event is absolutely completely undeniablly impossible under all known and possible laws of physics. But let's see what the commenters have to say.
[Note: On this thread were a large number of people using fake names. While most people use fake names on blogs, these names were particularly fake, since they were specifically constructed just for this thread, and sometimes they were using multiple different fake names on the same thread arguing the same point. I occasionally mightuse multiple fake names, but only if I want to make an irreverent comment using one name, certainly not ever to agree with myself, or argue the same point pretending to be two people, which is just disingenuous. ]
1. First, is this piece of silliness from 'Greg':
According to Rambam (say some of his interpreters) and Rav Soloveitchik, miracles aren't supernatural, so that entire line of argument is irrelevant.
Greg
Greg seems to make a career of explaining how amazing miracles mentioned in the bible are in fact not so amazing, since they really are all natural occurances. OK, but this doesn't help at all when discussing TMS, since God speaking to 600,000 people is certainly a supernatural event of the most supernatural kind. In other words, its a miracle.
Greg's response? This piece of lameness:
But there are reasonable grounds for a person to believe that the essential contents of the proposed revelation are in fact Divine. (i.e. their extraordinary nature and impact upon the world). So the fact that supernatural claims of an entirely different nature, i.e. miracles, have never been proven, is entirely irrelevant. [XGH: my bold]
Notice that Greg says 'the essential contents'. These are weasel words, because Greg, although seemingly Orthodox, doesn't actually want to commit himself to saying that the 5 books of Moses were given at Har Sinai. He would prefer to say something happened at Sinai, which is in fact a Conservative, not Orthodox Theology. What are these reasonable grounds? That the words of Torah are extraordinary?! Firstly, how are they extraordinary? Are all extraordinary books from the Divine? Greg never explains.
On another point, a commenter questions Gil's dismissal of questions on Genesis by saying it could be metaphorical by pointing out that nobody really ever took Breishsi metaphorically until recently, and certainly Chazal didn't take it all metaphorically. Greg responds:
Of course they all took it literally. So what? That's not a reason for us not to. They were supposed to take it literally, for it to have maximum impact.
Funny. When challenged that maybe the Exodus or even the story of Mattan Torah could be metaphorical, but 'They were supposed to take it literally, for it to have maximum impact.' Greg mysteriously dissapeared without a trace. [Although later, 'Sam' and 'Einstein' just as mysteriously appeared.]
Next we have these gems of silliness from Gil:
If you are truly open-minded then you will acknowledge that skeptics have not concluded the debate and that it could be the case that OJ is correct but not proven.
Yes Gil, it could be correct. As could Christianity, Islam and every other crazy religion. But they certainly don't look very correct. The dishonesty here is that however 'less than solid' the disproofs of OJ are, they are still 100 times more solid than the proofs. In other words, you certainly don't need a 100% solid disproof to disprove something which was never in any way proven in the first place! In fact the 'proofs' for TMS don't even get off the ground in the first place. Don't believe me? Try them on anyone not OJ (or fundamentalist Christian). They will look at you as if you are nuts. When this was pointed out to Gil, his unbelievable response was:
Which just goes to show that your empirical methodology leads up to a dead end.
Right. So since empirical (i.e. rational in this context) methodology doesn't provide any proofs for OJ (the 'dead end' in Gil's mind), we have to try another trick. And you can bet your bottom dollar that if somehow the empirical methodology did provide proof for OJ, the believers would be all over it. So dishonest.
Next we have Ari Lamm (any relation to Norman?). I found Ari particularly disconcerting, sicnce he seemed to be articulate and intelligent, but the claims he advanced were either plain nonsense, or quite factually incorrect, yet he wouldn't give an inch (of course).
In response to:
"No SOLID proof of any real miracle has EVER been furnished by anyone EVER. The rational position here is that impossible things don't happen."
Ari writes:
'All you are demonstrating is that religion is not mathematics. But obviously no philosopher - religious or otherwise - would accept this as proof of anything with regard to miracles...and no historian should either.'
Say what? No solid evidence of any miracle has ever been shown, but this is no proof of anything? Bizarre. Only a mind twisted by the demands of a fundamentalist religion could think this makes any sense. And then we have this gem:
''As I've said before, believing in Torah le-Moshe mi-Sinai takes no more Emunah than believing in the "documentary hypothesis."'
Right. Believing that God wrote the bible, with all the gazillion problems that brings, is no more strange than the dominant theory that the Bible is a many layered work composed over the centuries. What are these people smoking?! Answer: Fundamentalist religion of course. Since their 'going in position' and entire worldview is that 'of course' God wrote the Bible, any other position will naturally look unbelievable to them. They are incapable of freeing their minds and being objective.
Next the 'Intellefundies' arrived on the scene. People who have studied some philosophy and think they have the answers. Dfdf made this comment:
So tell me, do you, for instance, believe that other people feel pain as you do? If so, do you believe this because you have a good argument for this belief? Do you in fact have a good argument for the conclusion that other people in fact feel pain, rather than simply exhibit pain-associated behavior (that is behavior that you associate with pain). If you do have a good argument, I should like to hear it. If you don't, why do you believe it at all, given your chosen method of belief-forming which requires good, "hard facts and evidence"?
Haven't we discussed this a thousand times already? So because 'philosophically speaking' we can't prove other minds exist therefore anything goes? Good grief. The stupidity only gets stupider.
In the middle of all this, Gil actually said something hafway intelligent. Ari Lamm claimed that as more OJs enetered academia, academia's views would change. When someone pointed out how stupid this was, and based on the evidence of people like James Kugel and Larry Shiffman most likely the academics would 'change' Gil responded:
I agree [that if OJ's entered academia, OJ would change more than academia] except that it will include a reinterpretation of tradition rather than a negation of it, much like has happened in the Evangelical community.
Could be.
I'm running out of cheshek here.
Briefly we then had FKM claim that 600,000 people witnessed Har Sinai so it was a strong claim (duh, the 600,000 witnesses is itself a myth), and of course he dissappeared when countered.
We also had a number of people say 'Since philosophically God exists, it's only a short step to Miracles / Revelation'
This is plain wrong. Firstly, 'philosophically' the best you get is a prime mover / First Cause. That's not God or anything like God (and never mind that these 'proofs' are pretty shot to hell anyway at this point). Secondly, the 'step' to revelation, or any kind of Divine interference in this world has never ever been shown, so calling it a 'small step' is neither here nor there. Sure, it's a small step for God, because God can do anything. But by that logic Jesus Christ and Muhammad are also a small step.
Someone else said that one god was probable because of the 'unity of the laws of nature'. Then it was pointed out that presumably two Gods were sufficiently god like to be able to work together and construct a harmonized system. No good answer to that one.
Then we got onto an incredibly stupid tangent where the believers tried to claim that we skeptics are hypocritical, because we don't check our basic beliefs, e.g. who our parents are. Very briefly: most parents don't lie about that. (except in Jerry Springer ville). Therefore it's a good assumption, unless you have cause for concern (e.g. your parents are white but you're black. You find adoption papers hidden in a closet etc). In stark contrast, 95% (or maybe 100%) of all religions are false, so its quite likely that any religion your parents taught you is false. And of course there are gazillions of questions on religions too. And of course if someone brought you mounds of evidence that your parents were not in fact your parents, you would probably WAKE UP and take notice. This is just too silly for any serious discussion.
The question was asked 'Is TMS being a myth absolutely impossible?'
Nobody answered.
The question was also asked ' Since the global academic consensus of historians, archeologists and bible experts is that the stories in [and about] the Bible are not true, is anyone here claiming that a religious sect's view of these things is MORE credible than the entire academic community?
Again, nobody answered.
I will end with this probably unintentionally honest answer which gives the game away, (to the skeptics)
The question was asked:
'Why don't you accept the premise that you should start with no a-priori conclusions (except what we know for sure with solid evidence), and then evaluate which explanation is the most likely?
To which Gil responded:
Because our a priori assumptions are part of who we are and how we think. Additionally, that gives skepticism the upper hand because it is easier to knock something down and create doubt than it is to substantiate something and build it up.
Gil says it all right there. He has (baseless) a priori assumptions because that's who he is i.e. he's an Orthodox Jew with a priori assumptions. And why won't he start with a 'clean slate' i.e. with no a-priori beliefs in God and Torah and then evaluate all the evidence?
Because then the skeptics will win!
Gil actually admits that if we get rid of our prior biases and beliefs and just look at everything objectively, he couldn't make a strong case for Orthodox Judaism. What more needs to be said?
Maybe this debate wasn't such a waste of time after all.
Jun 13, 2008 12:34 AM
1:08 to 1:12 is how I feel about religion
Popout
(or maybe 0:36)
Jun 12, 2008 10:34 PM
_I debated on Hirhurim's latest post on religion, and now I wish I hadn't. So depressing, watching people stubbornly cling to the utmost nonsense and poor logic [and not being able to convince anyone of anything]. It's difficult to come to any other conclusion than that religous believers are fundamentally dishonest. Maybe not consciously, but their brains are just not capable of honest, objective thought.
For most of them (chardal gets a free pass here), it's simply the result of childhood indoctrination. Having grown up with a belief in God, miracles and TMS, all that seems prefectly reasonable and likely to them, and the DH, strange as it is, seems even less likely. They are incapable of stepping back and seeing things objectively, or even admitting that is the case.
And they believe that the entire academic world is biased and uninformed! Amazing. And these are supposedly 'Modern' Orthodox people. When it comes down to it, MO are just as delusional as the Chareidim, just with more sophisticated fundamentalism.
It's at this point that I get quite de-motivated to come up with some kind of Orthopraxic OJ. What's the point? I don't really want to mix with such delusional fundamentalists. Life's too short to deal with this nonsense. Maybe the LW MO are better. I think Hirhurim is about as relevant to me as Yeshivahworld.
Jun 11, 2008 4:17 PM
Just noticed this comment from ej on e-kvetcher's blog:
...XGH's theatrical method. He does it again and again...stop life! I/we are going to figure out if Torah is true, if TMS actually occurred. Before we can decide anything, stop the presses, we must figure out our purpose in life, and until we have it all figured out the only honest approach is to hold our breath and wait for the next post where maybe, maybe, all will become clear. As everyone knows life doesn't wait, and as we go through life we can and do reflect on how it is going, some more, some less. Mentalblogs does the same ...STOP! Judaism is totally corrupt and we/I must tear it all down and rebuild from scratch. Sensitive but moody genius at work. Stay tuned for details.
He was commenting on this other comment from himself, regarding my quest for meaning:
If you talk to older people, (check with your parents), they say something different. They ALL say "Where did it (the time) go. I was just 50, 30, a teen. I can't believe how quickly it went by." They don't say what is the meaning of it all, what is my purpose? They have all the meaning and purpose they need...they just want more life to do more of what they have been happy doing their whole life. The biggest tzadik who believes the purpose of life is to be davuk bahashem will do anything to delay the onset of that "ultimate meaning." Teen agers and belated adolescents want to know what they are going to do when they grow up (purpose) or what does it all mean (ideals and values worth living for or internalizing.) When you are grown up you generally almost by definition know what you are going to do or want to do, and hopefully you have a plan which integrates your ambitions and goals with your values and ideals. The basic mistake imho in looking for meaning as if it is something in front of you that you find or discover or create is that for the most part, meaning is behind you. As you age you see, you discover, what you did and what you didn’t do, and you find out what was in fact important to you and what was not. Did you marry, did you have that last child, did you take risks for the sake of X? You read/ interpret your own life and discover or maybe create its meaning. Were people more important than books, was looking good more important than money, leisure more important than experiences, which experiences do you cherish and which would you rather forget?
Why all this focus on ej? Well, he's about twice my age and I do believe wisdom comes with years. But I'm not sure I agree with him here, everyone is looking for meaning. I even know old people who question what's the point of it all.
But I do agree that the quest for meaning is somewhat age dependent. Gail Sheehy has several famous books, which I'm sure ej is aware of, about the various stages that men (and women) go through in their lives. Mid life for men is when they start to question their goals and meaning in life, and want to try and accomplish more than just getting married, having kids, or getting that promotion. This middle age crisis of meaning is especially tough on middle managers, though C-level execs are just delaying the inevitable lack of meaning angst till their retirement.
Also, throw in an OJ value stack where meaning is king ,while simultaneously pulling out the rug of OJ belief, killing off a close relative fairly suddenly and transitioning into mid life and middle management, and you have a full blown existential crisis with no end in sight. But your mileage may vary.
Jun 11, 2008 3:17 PM
Festschrift in honor of XGH's X0th birthday!!!
X0 years ago today I was born (hebrew date) and it's a biggie. My wife brought me a nice new PC with a giant 24" monitor, and I think I might get me a new camera or something else small and electronical.
But more importantly, a group of us are getting together to go see the new Indiana Jones movie to honor me with a compilation of essays about Orthodoxy / Skepticism in the modern world. All contributions are welcome, long or short, liberal or (slightly) fundie. If you don't contribute, I'll just have to search the archives for something written by you.
I would especially like contributions from evanstonjew, e-kvetcher (about time you said something yourself, rather than just snarky comments about everything else), RJM, Gil Student, david guttman, Deganev (ha), FedUp, Orthoprax, Anthony, and pretty much every other regular here.
This idea came to me when I realized that half the comments here (and elsewhere) were better than many recent books I have read (which shall remain nameless), and I think we could put together a pretty nice piece of work.
I would recommend writing on the subject of 'Why be Orthodox?', or at least 'Why be Jewish?', or failing that, 'Why be religious?'. And if you can't manage that, then 'Why be a secular humanist?' is good too. And if none of that works, then I guess I will accept 'Why be a hedonistic nihilist?'.,
Jun 11, 2008 11:08 AM
I'm still waiting for a religious believer to answer the following question:
Please describe the difference between the following two feelings / sensations / phenomena:
1. Strong feeling of belief in your religious beliefs
2. Strong feeling of intuition that your religious beliefs are correct.
Anyone?,
Jun 11, 2008 11:08 AM
So I got about half way through 'In the footsteps of the Kuzari' by Shalom Rosenberg, published by Yashar books / ATID, and then shul ended.
To be honest, I was dissapointed. It was mostly the same old stuff - Nazism & Communism were terrible, therefore God exists, or OJ is true, or something like that. Not particularly any more sophisticated than all the various Kiruv Clown books. Anyways, maybe the 2nd half, or 2nd volume, is better. I mean the guy is a philosophy professor (a real one, not like Gottleib), so he should have something clever to say, no?
Meanwhile, my Rabbi gave an awful speech in shul (there was a bar-mitzvah) where he said to the bar mitzvah boy that since he was born OJ he had no choice but to continue being OJ, and 'choice' was a Western concept that we OJ's don't believe in. Yuck. Then he ended off by saying that the boy should chose his destiny, which completely negated the rest of his drashah. Very strange, but that's what happens when you try and rationalize fundamentalism.
Also, I heard that the wizard of OZ (Rabbi Allen Shwartz), said that nobody should be called a kofer for denying the 8th, and likewise nobody should be called foolish for believing in TMS. I'm not sure whether he was saying it's not kefirah to deny the 8th, or whether he was just calling for people to be nice to each other (but not too nice, nudge nudge wink wink know what I mean).
Over the pond in the UK, the Chief Rabbi gave a long talk about Biblical Critcism. I don't have good notes, but I assume his spin cycle capability is good even at 3am.
Still, maybe I should take Rabbi Shwartz'es suggestion. I'll promise not to call you a fool if you promise not to call me a kofer. Deal?
Jun 11, 2008 11:08 AM
Some guy called 'anon' (why can't people use their real names?) had a long argument with Chardal on Hirhurim regarding Chardal's 'intuition' claim, that he (and all other religious believers) have some kind of special intuition that their religion is true.
Anon argued that this 'intuition' was nothing more than good old regular faith / belief, and challenged Chardal (or anyone) to distinguish between the two feelings. Chardal couldn't.
In response, Chardal challenged anon to come up with some philosophical system which justified belief in science but not religion. anon couldn't .... be bothered, because it's not about clever philosophy - clever philosophy can disprove (or prove) anything. For any system out there, you can be sure there is some clever philosopher who has a theory to explain it.
Anyways, anon believes in the global consensus of qualified non-biased experts, and there is no such concensus when it comes to philosophy of religion, or philosophy of belief, or in fact any philosophy at all. The value of philosophy lies in the differing ways of viewing things, and sharpening the mind, and various cool ideas. And also it pay the salaries of philosophers. But there is no global philosophical concensus on anything much. Also not suprisingly, the philosophers most connected with justifying faith (Tillisch etc) are typically religious fundamentalists themselves.
anon summed it up as follows:
So far, all you have managed is to claim that you have an unexplainable feeling which is somehow different than belief (though you can't show how it's different) which enables you to know that an unverifiable concept is actually true, but you have no way of proving this, and furthermore have no demonstrable track record of using this intuition correctly. Plus, millions if not billions of other people use a similar argument of 'intuition' for all kinds of nonsense, including clairvoyance, Mormonism, Christianity and whatever else. I'm sorry but I just don't see anything credible here.
To which Chardal responded:
It's not nonsense if it gives people meaning and a structure with which to express their spiritual side and relate to the sacred in their lives. Nobody it today's day and age has the luxury of standing on a perch and saying" my religion is justified empirically while all the others fail. Heck, no philosophical system has such a luxury. If that is what you are looking for, you will fail.
Seems to me that chardal backed off somewhat on his claim to have some kind of special intuition, and ultimately ended up saying that he found OJ to be the most fulfilling religion all round. Well, I can't argue with that, I do too. I just wish it was all true, that's all.
Here is Chardal's final (?) comment which I think is quite good, all things considered:
I think that one can still make an argument that OJ has more credibility than, say Chrisitianity or Islam (or your favorite, mormonism). For anti-missionary purposes, it may even be necessary to make such arguments. But you are right that a major component of my acceptance of OJ is that I find it the single most edifying, emotionaly, intelectually, spiritually, and ethically endevour of my life.
Look, I was not born religious AT ALL. I spent most of my high school years being a millitant atheist. in college, I started searching philosophy and religion for more answers.
I investigated to the best of my abilities easern religion as well as the major western ones and can honestly say that Judaism is the best for me based on almost any criteria I actually care about. It is the only system that has a concept of balance. Its not all about love (x-anity) or percieved justive (islam). Its not all about the mystical experience (buddaism and eastern meditations) or communal ethics (secular humanism) but it tries to give a system where all these things find their proper place. It gives a way to analyze conflicting values and arrive at working conclusions. It can sanctify all areas of life in a manner that I have never seen anywhere else.
You are correct that this may only appealing to someone who is looking for such a lifestyle (as I was). But I think that what is special about the Jewish people is that many of us ARE looking for such a system. Part of the problem is that orthodox society does not always live up to the ideals the Torah puts in place for us. But I strongly believe that this is all temporary.
If you want empirical evidence for Judaism, the best such evidence is that we have survived every intellectual and physical challenge ever leveled at us, and we did so not by always building barriars but often by integrating that which is true and good in the culture that challenged us. In the long term, we always end up stronger for it. I see no reason to start betting against the Jewish people in the 21st century.
Jun 6, 2008 12:55 PM
Spiritual Intuition a.k.a. Baseless Belief
Religious believers will often claim that they have some kind of special 'intuition' that their religious beliefs are correct. What is this mysterious 'intuition' and how do we know it has any credibility? Unfortunately, they are generally unable to explain.
Why is this? Because their 'intuition' is a feeling. A feeling of knowledge, as opposed to actual knowledge. It's the feeling a true believer has about their beliefs. It's why beliefs are so compelling, because feelings always trumps reason, and if you have a strong feeling about a belief, that's even more compelling for most people than having strong reasons for that belief. All of this has been proven time and again in various studies. The book I referenced below is a good start.
Is intuition ever valuable? Of course! We all use intuition. But intuition isn't some kind of magic. Intuition is based on years of experience and some natural talents. Intuition happens in the deeper parts of the sub-conscious brain, but there's no magic there.
And I'm not even opposed to 'magical' intuition. If you have an unexplainable intuition about winning lottery numbers, and can show me a track record of success, heck, I'll run out to the lottery store immediately! I don't care. But believing your 'intuition' with no track record? That's just plain stupid.
Some people have great intuition, my wife for example. But if she was consistently wrong, then neither she nor I would then trust her intuition. That's pretty obvious.
This planet is full of people who claim a special 'intuition' about all sorts of things: the physical world past present & future, the spiritual world, God(s), the dead, the stock market and prettty much everything else. 99% of these people are charlatans with track records no better than you would get from guessing. This has been shown time and time and time again.
If you have a reliable intuition, then I would be glad to hear about it. Otherwise, 'intuition' is simply another word for 'baseless belief'.
Jun 4, 2008 10:31 AM
Showing feelings of an almost human nature
_
One tremendously important thing I have realized over the past few years is how much we are all driven by our emotions and feelings. Blaise Pascal famously said: 'The heart has its reasons of which reason knows nothing', and this is very true.
Emotion will always trump Reason, every time, for pretty much everybody.
Of course some people don't have strong emotions, but if they did it would be true of them too. Underlying emotions drive what we think about, how we think about it, and what conclusions we come too.
This fact pretty much explains all the confusing things about skeptics, BTs, Intellefundies and all the rest. Here is how it plays out:
True believers are always so emotionally invested in their religion that they cannot accept reality. This explains why the Intellefundies are able to hold onto their faith, even their arguments are so obviously lame. So why do some believers go OTD when faced with reality?
There are two basic scenarios:
1. The believer who goes OTD was never emotionally invested that much in their religion in the first place, so once they start analyzing it they are toast. This describes many of the skeptics I know, either they always had doubts, or else they just didn't 'connect' with their religion. Have a read of the many skeptic stories on the Internet, you see this pattern over and over again. This kind of skeptic typically goes totally OTD quite easily and happily.
2. The believer who goes OTD did indeed have an emotional investment in their religion, but their emotional investment in always being 'right', never being 'wrong', and not being a sucker over-rides their religious emotions. Some skeptics are like this. This type of skeptic cannot just let go of OJ even after he knows it's false, so he trys to come to some new theology or way of dealing with his new found lack of faith. Alternatively a huge emotional 'shock' to their system can cause this kind of believer to re-evaluate, e.g. if a respected religous authority figure turns out to be a fraud.
This also plays out with intellectual BTs. I know a few BTs who are extremely educated, even in Biblical Criticism, yet have come to believe in TMS. How can this be? The answer is straightforward. Their emotional attachment to spirituality and religion over-rides their attachment to rationality.
Note that this is neither good nor bad, it is just the way that humans are constructed. If emotions didn't drive our reason, most of us probably wouldn't get out of bed in the morning.
Does this invalidate our reasoning? It certainly can do, and it often explains why people who are most certainly and obviously wrong are still convinced they are right.
So how can a subjective individual ever be sure that they are thinking straight? Maybe all the skeptics are just driven by emotions, and in fact they are the ones who are quite wrong!
It's difficult, but if you make a huge (and often quite painful) effort to detach your emotions from your thinking, and at every turn act as an impartial objective analyst on your own thought processes to weed out any fallacious arguments, it can be done. You also have to have the ability to play devil's advocate with yourself, and also be able to see the opposing party's POV, and even switch sides in an argument and play both sides.
Luckily, I can do all of these things well, and that's how I know I'm correct here. YMMV.
You can see this quite clearly in the arguments of the skeptics and the believers. The believers almost always appeal to emotional arguments such as faith and loyalty, whereas the skeptics make a concerted effort to be objective. And then of course you have the obvious fact that believers are emotionally invested in their way of life much more so than a frum skeptic trying to figure out the truth. Of course skeptics have their emotional drivers too - usually an intense emotional based need to always be right, to not be a sucker, to get to the truth, and similar emotions.
So should we forget about all the debates? I don't think so. Although we are wired by our emotions, the lesson of Judaism is that we have to curb our emotions and desires for a higher good. Hashem says 'Borosy Yetzer Horoh, Borosy Torah Tavlin', which roughly translated means 'I created your emotions / desires, but I also created study / reason as the cure'.
This is why Judaism places so much emphasis on learning and studying - it has always recognized that study / intellect / reason is more important than anything else. Of course when Chazal said this they were operating under the assumption that the Torah was true, maybe nowadays they might see things a little differently. But the point remains true: If you want to know the true reality, you have to figure out a way to rid your thinking of all emotions. It's the only way.
So, in the spirit of being honest, let me talk about my emotional drivers, and what the effects are.
1. Drive to be 'right'
I have a fear of being wrong, or of making a mistake. I always try to be careful about what I say in a professional context, as I don't ever want to be the fool. I analyze and anlayze everything I think to be sure I am correct. Sometimes however, other emotional drives such as wanting to say something to look intelligent can over-ride this, and I say something stupid. Ironic!
2. Emotional attachment to religion
Yes, I'm quite attached to God and religion. This obviously conflicts tremendously with the above, which is why I'm so conflicted here.
3. Somewhat cynical
I can be quite cynical and pessimistic at times. Someone I know very well thinks that my cynicism is the root cause of my skepticism. I don't think so, but even if it is the key emotional driver behind my skepticism, so what? The skeptical version of reality is still the true version, as can be quite convincingly proven, so whether my personal emotional reasons for being skeptical are due to cynicism or not makes no difference!
4. Iconoclastic
I am quite iconoclastic / contrarian, it's a trait that runs in my family. If everyone goes right, I'm going left. Or vice versa. If everyone became skeptical, I would probably turn Chareidi again. This also explains why I have staked out my position as a total skeptic who still wants to be frum. At first, being a skeptic was kinda unique, but then everyone else I know got skeptical too, so where was the chiddush? So now I have to be skeptical but frum (or something else different).
So, where do my biases lie, and how do they effect my thinking? I think that if you analyze the above, you will see that I have an overall bias towards Judaism and OJ, and even Chareidi ways of thinking (ej, you are not the only one!). I can't help it. If I didn't have this bias, I would simply have chucked it all out the window a while back and would give OJ about as much thought as I give Mormonism. Which is precisely nil.
Jun 3, 2008 11:31 PM
Yet another kofer from Evanston!
What is it with these Evanston people? A bunch of koferim, the lot of them. This David Gruber guy though is awesome. Yes, I know he was on DovBear and Littlefoxling, but his true home is here. He has a good summary of why he no longer believes in OJ:
"The theory of monoauthorism, namely that the Torah was written by a single author, especially in the 13th Century B.C.E. (and certainly earlier), is a fantasy. At that time Hebrew script and writing did not yet exist. The Canaanite alphabet had barely been standardized, after the change from 27 consonants to 22 consonants, and it was still written right to left, left to right and vertically too. Archeology clearly shows that Israelite society, when it emerged, was not a literate society, while the Torah takes this as a given. This is only one of numerous anachronisms in the Torah that make it clear that it is not a 13th Century B.C.E. document. In the 13th Century B.C.E., for example, contrary to what is imagined by the biblical authors, there were no domesticated camels, no Philistines living on the Coast, no Chaldeans in Ur, no widespread use of iron and coinage, no kingdoms in Edom, Moab and Amon, and the cities of Dan (with that name), Nineveh, Beer-Sheva, Gerar and many others mentioned were not founded yet."
I think that's all mostly correct, but he might be wrong about the camels though. The JPS chumash says even though camels were not widespread as domesticated animals, they were known.,
Arggggggggggggggggggggggggggggggh
Here's Claire Torry to tell you about existential angst.
[WARNING do not watch any of these if:
• It’s the omer
• You don’t listen to Kol Ishah
• You don’t want to hear endless tracks of women screaming]
Popout
1. Claire Torry
2. Sam Brown
3. Melina Imhoff
4. Caroline all'azione
5. Aussie Pink Floyd
6. Dream Theatre
7. Bianca Antoinette
8. Beyond The Darkside
9. Which One's Pink
10. All in All
11. Unamed Berlin?
12. Unamed Venice
13. Carol?
I think Clare Torry's version is still the best, but Sam Brown is pretty good too. Melina Imhoff can sure belt out a tune but she's a bit scary looking. I'm not too keen in general on all the aussie Pink Floyd tribute bands though. 11 & 12 are pretty bad musically, but I think the anguished screaming works quite well.,
,Jun 3, 2008 5:30 PM
Modern Orthodox Shavuos Night Hashkafic Kefirah Tittilation Competition
How's that for a blog title?
MO shuls always advertise shiurim for Shavuous night learning with very interesting, semi-kefiradick titles. My shul does this every year, I assume to draw in the punters with the promise of some sensationalist, slightly naughty kefira-lite. 'Oooh look at us, we're so modern and daring, not like those intellectually backwards chareidim'. Trouble is, it's always a 'bait and switch', nothing too controversial is ever said (of course). However, I thought it would be fun to see whose shul has the most daring lecture titles. Winner gets to stay up all Shavuos night and take (mental) notes!,
Jun 3, 2008 4:30 PM
Conflicted about the future of my new theology
Astute readers may have noticed a certain conflict or contradiction in my approach to a new theology for Orthodoxy. And that's because I am conflicted. There are a few options here, and I keep changing my mind as to which one to go with. I'll roughly call them the Conservative, Reform and Reconstructionist approaches, though that's just for kicks.
Approach 1: Conservative Approach a.k.a. divinely inspired
This approach is basically the Louis Jacobs approach that the Bible is man's account of man's encounter with the Divine. 'Something happened at Sinai' as one person I know put it. Sure, the Bible is a composite document, but Jewish history is too amazing, and the hand of God too clear to deny. Nobody could ever show that the Biblical writers were not inspired in some way. The advantage of this approach is that it can work very well if you spin it right. The disadvantage is that you still need quite a bit of spin.
Approach 2: Reform Approach a.k.a. God exists but religion is man made
This approach is that a classical God exists, but all religion is entirely man made, God has nothing to do with it. The value in any religion is just what we make of it, inasmuch as we think it might address what God wants. The advantage of this approach is that it requires no spin at all. However it lacks in motivation somewhat, especially to keep halachah.
Approach 3: Reconstructionist Approach a.k.a. There is no god and religion is culture
God doesn't exist per se, except perhaps in some strange sense. We do religion for man's sake, not for God's. Even less beliefs are required, and consequently there's even less motivation.
So it boils down to this: Once we agree that the ikkarim are bogus, how much belief in God and in His involvement in the world do we retain? This isn't something that history or science can ever really address (at least not currently).
Should we go with a ‘Divinely Inspired’ model? Should we just say all religion is man made, but let’s try and get a connection to God through our religion? Or should we say, all religious beliefs are entirely bogus (until some evidence appears). Depending on my mood and other influences, I can go either way on this, and often do.
I’m also conflicted about my conflict. Should I
(a) Admit I’m conflicted, continue studying and accept that I may keep changing my mind
(b) Try to come up with some theology/philosophy where being unsure about all this is actually part of the theology
(c) Just pick one derech and stick with it already
(d) Don't form any conclusions until after studying Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist theologies in depth for many years.
(e) All of the above
(f) Other (explain),
Jun 3, 2008 1:30 PM
Hirhurim posts an article from the YU Magazine about Science & Torah "researchers". As someone commented there, the term "researchers" is rather suspect, given that it implies some kind of scientific reasearch, rather than research into 'lesser known views of Rishonim' and 'Acharonim', which is in fact the only type of research that these people really do (though kudos to them for at least doing that!).
Another comment quotes one of the "researchers" as saying: "I fully agree that only trained scientists are qualified to discuss the physical development of the universe" and "I can assure him that the global consensus of scientists trained in the relevant fields would endorse my views."
Yet the global concensus of trained arechologists, historians and biblical scholars is that the Torah is a composite man made document!
I can understand the value of faith/tradition, I'm just having a hard time understanding the epistemelogical methodology being used here. It seems to be: 'Hard Science' 'trumps' 'Faith/Tradition', but 'Faith/Tradition' 'trumps' 'Soft Science'. But how does this work? Is the global concensus of experts only relevant in the field of hard sciences, but not in the soft sciences? Why is this the case?
I assume the "reasearchers" would argue that anything other than 'hard science' can be more easily dismissed as 'biased' or 'non-rigorous'. I am eagerly looking forward to the day when one of them can explain why religious tradition is a less biased and more rigorous methodology for uncovering truth than the methods employed by the global community of trained historians, archeologists and biblical scholars. Everything we know about the world and religion would seem to indicate that religions have a high degree of bias and less rigor in the way they evaluate past history.
This OF COURSE is the absolute crux of the ENTIRE debate here. No one person in this modern day and age can possibly be expert in everything, or even a tiny slice of 'everything'. We have to rely on the experts.
And who are the experts? Religious "researchers", constrained emotionally, spiritually and of course halachically to believe in certain historical facts, facts which have been trasmitted down from ancient times where almost every belief has since been proven false, or the global contemporary community of trained academic researchers?
Isn't this a simple no-brainer?
Of course I know the answer, because it's an answer I lived with myself for many years. And the answer goes like this:
"The soft sciences are full of biased individuals. There is no hard evidence there. The history of the Jewish people is incredibly unique and only makes sense in the context of the beliefs being true. The academics can't see this because (a) they are too biased and (b) they don't really appreciate the incredible depth of the Torah. The true experts in Torah are only the Orthodox Rabbis, not some academics who can barely read hebrew! Of course where hard science contradicts Torah with absolutely solid evidence, AND it can fit into our tradition, then we will accomodate it. But we certainly will not change the fundamental beliefs of our 3,000 year old religion because of some biased academics in the soft sciences!
Wow, that was a pretty good answer actually. I almost convinced myself!
I think the truth is that if I personally looked at the Torah and saw some amazingly deep something, I would go with this answer too. However I look at it and all I see is an obviously composite man made document, with two thousand year's worth of 'layers' on top, and that all the myriad 'questions' that the believers have to answer all simply melt away once you take that approach. Sure, other questions arise, but these are just the normal everyday questions about how the text happened, and isn't that wording strange, and questions like that. On the other hand, I do look at the history of the Jewish people and see that it is quite amazing.
So bottom line: Amazing history, not so amazing text.
History min Hashamayim? Could be!,
Jun 3, 2008 11:29 AM
Are MO Rabbis failing their congregants?
I once told my Rabbi that I thought about 30% of our (MO) shul were Orthoprax, but he didn’t agree with me. Recently, Prof Marc Shapiro was at my house and I asked him what he thought: He replied '30%? No way, more like 60%!' (he was talking about MO in general). There is no doubt at all that a large number of people that I know do not believe in the ikkarim, certainly not in all of them. Let’s have a quick look at the ikkarim and see why:
1. G-d is the Creator and Ruler of all things.
2. G-d is One.
3. G-d does not have a body.
4. G-d is first and last.
5. It is only proper to pray to G-d.
OK, there’s no solid evidence either way on these, though it should be noted that (3) is a relatively late development in Judaism.
6. All the words of the prophets are true.
7. The prophecy of Moses is absolutely true. He was the chief of all prophets, both before and after Him.
I can agree that as far as Judaism is concerned, Moses was the greatest prophet. But again, no good reason to believe that everything (or even anything) that Moshe or othre Neviim ever said was true.
8. The entire Torah that we now have is that which was given to Moses.
9. This Torah will not be changed, and that there will never be another given by G-d.
Simply not true. Not just on a detail level (i.e. everyone agrees that there have been some minor changes), but even on a broad level, the overwhelming consensus from the fields of ANE history, archeology and literary analysis is that the Torah was compiled by various authors over hundreds of years. Life is tough enough as it is, how can people be expected to discount the global consensus? Because it’s not hard science?! I’ve got some bad news for you sunshine, religion isn’t exactly hard science either.
10. G-d knows all of man's deeds and thoughts.
11. G-d rewards those who keep His commandments, and punishes those who transgress Him.
Could be, nobody knows.
12. The coming of the Messiah.
13. The dead will be brought back to life when G-d wills it to happen.
Sorry, Moshiach is a late development, and Techiyas Hamaysim is nonsense. Even the Rambam had a hard time with it. Plus the afterlife is a late development too.
The bottom line in all this is that (a) Nobody really knows anything about God, (b) The global academic expert concensus is that the Bible is a composite man made document and (c) Techiyas Hamaysim and Moshiach are late developments in the (man made) evolution of Judaism.
Given all of this, and given Modern Orthodoxy’s (supposed) commitment to the modern world, how on earth can MO Rabbis expect their intelligent, educated congregants to believe in the ikkarim?
Now, don’t get me wrong here, this isn’t just about going with the goyim. In this not bad Cross Currents post Eytan Kobre quotes (Reform) Rabbi Jeffrey Salkin as follows:
“Real” Jewish men need to recognize a powerful truth: Judaism is a counterculture. “Real” Jews have a different way of praying, learning, studying, and seeing the world. Being a Jewish man is — or should be — different from simply being a “generic” man. For generations, Jewish men have found their “macho” in mastery of Torah, in heartfelt worship, and in feats of loving-kindness and charity. Jewish men have typically rejected the culture of “sowing wild oats” and “boys will be boys.”
And that’s a sentiment I agree with (especially since I’m naturally a bit iconoclastic and countercultural myself). But, I draw the line at scoffing at, contradicting, or otherwise ignoring the global academic consensus on ancient history. I am happy to be counter-cultural, but counter-historical, counter-scientifical and counter-reality, no.
Most intelligent, and more importantly educated, people know all this, and yet the MO Rabbis can’t acknowledge this. They are too busy looking over their right shoulders, worrying about whether the Chareidim are calling them apikorsim (with good cause: apparently recently some RW Rabbi in my community said that a LW MO Rabbi in my community was an apikores). I’m all for unity but not at the price of honesty.
I appreciate that the MO Rabbis are caught between a rock and a hard place. And in private, they are certainly great to talk to. In fact, my wife was recently planning an event, and she asked me who to invite. I thought about it and realized my favorite people are all MO Rabbis (and some hard core skeptics).
And if the MO Rabbis themselves want to believe in TMS or OH or ThM or whatever, for their own personal sentimental reasons, then fine. But you can’t expect your congregants to believe this stuff, and you can’t throw them out of shul either (at least I don’t think you can).
A RIETS chavrusoh of mine, who is now a Mechon Hadarnick once said to me one of the best things that anyone has said on this topic ‘ No religion has yet figured out how to deal with modernity’. I would say better, ‘mankind hasn’t yet figured out how to deal with modernity’. Science, globally accepted by billions of people, says we are simply carbon based lifeforms, evolving somewhat randomly, with no ultimate purpose or meaning. Billions of people also believe in various religions, which all add their own layers of meaning, based on ancient mythologies, none of which have even remotely ever been shown to be true.
I want my religion to deal with this reality. I understand that the Chareidi approach is to ignore this reality, and that is fine for them. But if Modern Orthodoxy wants to be about something more than just watching movies and TV, then they really do need to confront this reality.
But do MO really address this issues? Not that I’ve ever seen. All I ever see in my LW MO shul is the typical (and often very silly) ‘Kefirah Lite’ stuff. Someone will give their drashah a bit of a daring title, start off with a movie reference to show their modern ‘creds’, and maybe quote the Rambam (gasp!) about something, and everybody will feel mildly titillated and so proud of themselves that we Modern Orthodox are so ‘open-minded’, unlike the ‘intellectually dishonest’ Chareidim down the street. It’s pathetic, and an insult to the intelligence of half the shul. (Okay maybe a quarter).
Does nobody else see this? I guess everyone else has just given up, which may explain why so many people I know are outside shul looking after their kids, or just show up late for Kiddush. Or maybe don’t come at all. Such a shame.
I appreciate that for many people maybe baby steps need to be taken. But many of the class are already walking, and have been for months, and setting up the whole classroom for babies who barely have an interest in crawling just isn’t working.
So what are you going to do about it?,
Jun 1, 2008 12:59 AM
Move over Rav Kook, Rabbi Berkovitz, and the Chief spinmeister Rabbi. Oh, and Ken Wilbur & RJM. We have a new spiritual guru - Shalom Rosenberg.
Who is Shalom Rosenberg? He's a professor of religion at Hebrew University. But best of all, he was a talmid of the fabulous Mr Shushani!!! It doesn't get better than that. I'm gonna have to read his book asap.,
Jun 1, 2008 12:59 AM
Giving up is not an option. The struggle continues!
[Bear with me here. This isn't all tied up neatly yet. Consider this the first draft of a framework. Subsequent iterations will refine the overall design and fill in the details. Right now this is all in shorthand. For all you technogeek readers (for some strange reason there seem to be a lot of you) think of this like a version 0.1 Software. Unless you are Yus, in which case in Microsoft units it's like a version 7.3 service pack 2 release.]
Morality, meaning and spirituality are undeniable features of human life. We all crave meaning, many of us crave spirituality, and most of us want morality (at least for the other guy). In fact, modern man is desperately searching for something. It's clear that fame and fortune does not supply what man is looking for, just read People magazine every week, and see how many stars are in rehab. [I said no, no, no].
So what are people looking for? Is it God, as religious believers would contend? I don't know, but since God is the source of ultimate meaning, that certainly does equate to what people are searching for.
Science is great, science is true, but science doesn't provide meaning (or morality or spirituality). So science isn't the answer to the human condition. Unless perhaps the scientists invent some meaning inducing drug which doesn't have any bad side effects and somehow they get the FDA to approve it. But until then, mankind needs more than science.
All this is somewhat independent of whether the God of the Bible exists or not. Even hardened atheists agree that people want meaning, morality and spirituality in their lives, they just argue about where to get it from, and why people actually want it. However all agree that a cold, pure scientific outlook on life isn't going to do society much good.
Now, there are certainly lots of different systems out there, all claiming to give you morality, meaning and spirituality. But how do they actually rate in practice?
The eastern religions certainly seem to give spirituality and a sense of inner peace to their adherents, but they don't seem to give much to the world in terms of social action, or a well defined moral code, or anything like that. I don't think anyone would argue for the moral brilliance of Islam. So what we are left with is Judaism and Christianity. [Yep, just like that we boil all the world's religions down to 2. But let's be honest, how many of the thousands of religions out there are actually well thought out and as rich as Judaism? And also supply meaning, morality and spirituality in spades?]
Christianity though has done away with Judaism's moral code, and instead substituted some platitudes. And more importantly, the behavior of its adherents throughout history hasn't been all that great.
Is Judaism's morality perfect, by 21st century standards? No. But there are two important things to think about here: Firstly, all morality is subjective, and secondly the very fact that Judaism expends enormous effort on ethics and morality, trying to code in the finest legal detail what is morally acceptable and what isn't makes Judaism one of the top dogs in this game. There's no way we humans could ever be convinced we have the perfect moral system anyway. The next best thing (and the only realistic thing) is to have a community of people committed to at least try. Incidentally, this is why Left Wing Modern Orthodox are more holy and moral than the Right Wing MO / Chareidim, because they try to right wrongs such as Agunah.
I am quite confident that I can make a good case for Judaism's morality (see: Neviim) and all that. But what about meaning?
Judaism is actually the ultimate in meaning, seeing 70 layers (and more) of meaning in an otherwise rather strange and unimpressive set of texts, seeing meaning in history, seeing meaning in pretty much everything. In fact Judaism introduced the world to the concept of a purpose and meaning to existence, with a Messianic utopia being the end game. Nobody does meaning better than Judaism.
Unfortunately there is an obvious problem here: The meaning is seemingly derived from untrue mythology - God written books and so on.
BUT, there is a workaround. The Neviim and Chazal were no fools, nor were they liars or delusional. So what on earth were they thinking? Seems to me they were somewhat reconstructionist/metaphorical in their outlook. When a Navi says 'Thus sayeth the Lord", he doesn't mean he heard it verbatim. Rather, he means he imagines this is what God, i.e. ultimate morality, meaning and spirituality (transcendence) would say, if He were asked. When Chazal say ' A bas kol says X', they can't mean they heard the voice of God. It has to be metpahorical. (In other words, Lunatic, Liar, or Metaphorical)
Yes, I know that centuries of traditional Jews have all taken this literally. But so what? The world evolves, religion evolves, and Judaism evolves. Possibly this is the way that God (if he exists) wants things to happen.
The great challenge of course is to make this work for all humanity. So far, Orthodox Judaism has been somewhat of a failure, which is exactly why Moshiach (a.k.a. the redemption of mankind) has not come. Why has OJ been a failure? Because they took the tofel over the ikkar. They focused on the literalness of certain unbelievable beliefs rather than the underlying message of meaning, morality and spirituality.
However, we must acknowledge that it's very, very hard to create a community of committed passionate people, devoted to morality, meaning and spirituality, yet not reliant on ancient untrue mythology. How many religions have achieved this?
Guess what - pretty much Judaism is the only one, with Reform Judaism (and most of Conservative Judaism too for that matter). Are Reform and Conservative perfect? Of course not, they have watered down the key messages far too much. But once again Judaism leads the way forward for humanity. [Unitarians are a relatively tiny sect of Christianity compared to Reform].
And anyway, Judaism doesn't need to be the absolute best system for meaning, morality and spirituality [which of course it would impossible to prove anyway, since it's all entirely subjective], it just needs to be a very, very good system, which expends effort on achieving these goals, which it certainly is.
The point is that giving up all religion and becoming profoundly secular gets you nowhere much. You haven't really solved the problem of how to get meaning, morality and spirituality (M, M & S). I guess you could try and put something together with personal meaning, secular ethics (based on what exactly?) and get-high spirituality, but you still lose out on community and life cycle ritual. Why do you think there are no large congregations of atheists? They are just not that motivated. Some of them will claim they don't need congregations to get M,M & S, but I don't believe it. Humans are social animals, you can't live as an island.
The obvious answer (for now) is that as thinking, feeling humans, we need to evolve towards a 'godly' society (i.e. one invested in M, M & S). Nobody has the perfect answer, but gold medals to those who try the hardest, which on a practical level clearly committed Jews stand a winning chance.
This is not to disparage other religions. Who knows? Maybe in the long run the perfect solution will come from some backwater no name cult (unlikely). But the fact is, we have been around for a long while, we've been in almost all the major civilizations, and we seem to be the obsessive focus of the entire world. (Not to mention possibly the most annoying group on the planet.) And with a very unique history. Something funny is going on if you ask me. All in all, putting my efforts into Judaism is certainly not a bad choice.
At this point you might be thinking that this is a great shpiel on behalf of Reform Judaism, but what does any of this have to do with Orthodoxy? Well, as we all know, most Reform Jews are entirely ignorant of their religion, and don't make a huge amount of effort to follow the ethical codes, though they do excel in social action. Clearly, we need to combine the sensitive morality and ethics of the modern orthodox with the social action of the Reform. The acceptance of the true nature of reality from Reform with the unbelievable commitment of the Orthodox to study. And throw in some good old Chassidic spirituality too.
On three things the world stands: On Torah, on Avodah, on Gemillut Chassadim. Torah is learning. Torah is intellectual. Torah is meaning. Avodah is Transcending your everyday life to have a conversation with 'God' (the ultimate M, M & S). Avodah is spirituality. Gemmilut Chassadim is Kindness. Gemmilut Chassadim is Morality.
The founding fathers of Judaism represent these three key aspects of life. Avraham stands for Chessed. Yitzchak stands for Avodah, and Yaakov stands for Torah. Why is Avraham first? Because the foundation of everything is chessed - morality. Without that, the 'Olam' i.e. civilization, fails. Next we have spirituality - the transcendance from material desires to a higher plane of being. Finally, we get to ultimate meaning. Talmud Torah Kneged Kulom - Meaning is the ultimate goal.
So how do we get rid of the tofel (the silly literalness of the beliefs) and get back to the ikkar? It's a struggle, certainly. Once you realize that all religion is man made, its very tempting to just say 'ah, the hell with it all', and live out your days with wine, women and song (or McDonalds, techno-gadgets and Blu-ray). But that would be giving up on the ultimate goal.
I read recently that many of the pioneers in AIDS research and treatment ended up totally crashing. One famous pioneer who saved many lives is now a drug addict and criminal. What the hell happened? Well, once the various AIDS drugs were perfected, and the lifespan of HIV positive people was extended, the immediate AIDS crisis was over. These people, who had the most meaningful jobs in the world at the height of epidemic, became less useful. They couldn't stand this new lack of meaning in their lives, and totally flamed out. Sad but true.
Various philosophers (and now neuroscientists and biologists) have argued about what man's ultimate drive is. Is it pleasure, meaning or what? I think it is clearly meaning. Nobody who spends their life devoted to this worldy pleasures dies happy. For whatever reasons (God given Neshamah or evolutionary driven spandrel depending on your POV) this is the reality of our situation. We need to find a way to give society M, M & S.
There is a ton of wisdom, practice and role models in Judaism embodying M, M & S. More so than in almost any other religion.
You couldn't pick a better place to start.
So what do we have to do? Some people try and synthesize the 'best' from multiple religions. I don't think that works very well. The various religions are too different, and what you end up with is frankenstinian. I think there's enough depth and breadth within Judaism to get everything you need from a one place (single vendor for you technogeeks).
Plus, and maybe more importantly, Judaism is the ultimate 'best of breed' religion anyway - we took all the best ideas from our various host cultures and worked them into one religion.
So, we have a ready made religion combining all of mankind's best religious ideas, tried and tested and proven in the most difficult of circumstances, what more could you ask for?
The beliefs are nor true, we know that now. But then again, I think Chazal, the Neviim and many of the Biblical writers probably knew that too. When the Priests wrote their Priestly code, and wrote "And God said ...", did they really think God actually said that to them? I doubt it. We have been using metaphor for 3,000 years. We need to recognize it for what it is.
These are the rough outlines of why we need to continue the struggle. Plus, there are all sorts of Post Modernish themes about identity which play into this, but I'll leave that to the experts.
Giving up is not an option. The struggle continues!,
