A Possible Kosher "Weak" Pluralism?

I mean 'weak' in the philosophical meaning of proofs and arguments - where "weak" suggests an argument relying strongly on a presupposition shared in a dispute. Shaiya Rothberg on the efforts and trials of individuals according to the Rambam Moreh Nevukhim III:34;

“Among the things that you likewise ought to know is the fact that the Law [that is, the Torah] does not pay attention to the isolated. The Law was not given with a view to things that are rare…it is directed only towards the…majority of cases and pays no attention to…the damage occurring the unique human being because of this…[the nature of the Law’s government is such that] the purpose of the Law is not perfectly achieved in each individual…[and none the less] the Law ought to be absolute and universal…for if it were made to fit [each] individual(s), the whole would be corrupted…[as it is said]: "As for the congregation, there is one Law for you” (Bemidbar, 15:15).

Now this is a pretty harsh formulation of the problem. But it well expresses the fact that the Torah is a collective project. Its not only about the lives of individuals but about the life and redemption of People of Israel.

Torah requires the individual to accept the yoke of working out the binding meaning of the commandments, the halacha, together with other Jews, even when one feels that Truth with a capital T lies somewhere else. And this in turn means that the individual Jew must constantly relate to a common agenda - what the community is doing and what community is thinking about - even if that common agenda isn’t on the mark personally.

In the Shulchan Aruch even ha-ezer siman aleph it states:...Each man must marry a woman in order to be fruitful and multiply. (and this is of course a mitzvah deoraita). Whoever doesn’t do the mitzvah, is like one who spills blood, and decreases the image of God in the world, and causes the Shchinah to depart from Israel.

Now, the idea that not having children is akin both to murder and to decreasing the image of God in the world was suggested by a Tanna named Shimon Ben Azzai. Interesting, Ben Azzai himself had no children and probably was never married. When accused of not practicing what he preached, Ben Azzai responded:

Said to them Ben Azzai: “what can I do? My soul desires Torah, and the world will exist through others [ie the reproduction of others].

I think some important points are to be learned from Ben Azzai. First, Ben Azzai justifies his failure to fulfill a mitsvat aseh deoraita (positive Biblical Commandment) by saying “what can I do?”, that is, he sort of claims that he is anoos or forced not to fulfill the mitzvah. But what is he forced by?...he’s forced by his love of Torah. In other words, Ben Azzai knows that fulfilling this mitzvah would compromise his individual way of dvekut (attachment) to God and Torah [this is not a compromise of observance for sake of "lifestyle"; it is one mitzvah for the sake of all other applicable mitzvot], and since this dvekut is the meaning and purpose of a Jew’s life, he is, as it were, forced not to fulfill it.

However, Ben Azzai not only accepts that this mitzvah exists and binds him, he’s one of the machmerim (strict ones). It is Ben Azzai who suggested that one who does not have children both murders and reduces the image of God in the world.

So how can he both accept the mitzvah {with a hiddur!} and not perform it? Ben Azzai says...that he is part of the people of Israel and...all Jews are responsible one for the other. There may be Jews that cannot fulfill Talmud Torah like Ben Azzai can, but they can fulfill (the commandment of reproduction) while he cannot. Together, with their individual strengths and weaknesses, the People Israel fulfill the whole Torah.

So I conclude that the community does bind and limit the individual as the Rambam made clear, but at the same time the aravut, the joint responsibility of all Israel, also liberates the individual by making room for his or her particular character.

But would this interpretation actually establish space within halacha (not sanction per se), for what appears as overwhelming non-observance on the part of others, in absence of dvekut to HKBH and Torah? Or enough room for the increasingly-willful non-observance and conscious abstention from systematic dvekut through mitzvot on the part of those who leave Torah lifestyles? Ben Azzai's abstention from an observance is 'balanced' by belief that it binds him still, and by the fact that he is 'freed' to focus on adherence to other observances.

Another matter is the different views on whether intent is necessary for a mitvah to 'count'. Rav Soloveitchik does not believe it to be mandatory, for Rambam it's a central and complex factor. The great number of Jews do not consciously keep mitzvot or consciously regard Torah beliefs. Are the few who consciously participate in ritual Mitzvot and ethical obligations (and the even fewer who manage to keep Rambam's shita), capable of being concrete enough to compensate for the great number who are not even aware of actions or beliefs as mitzvot? R. Nathan Lopes Cardozo (my emph);

For Jews to bring their fellowmen back to Judaism there is a need to celebrate the mitzvoth which the secular Jew has been observing all or part of his/her life. Not his failure to observe some others. Only through the notion of sharing in mitzvoth will an authentic way to be found to bring Jews back home.
... There is little doubt that secular Jews, consciously or unconsciously, keep a great amount of commandments. Many of them may not be in the field of rituals, but there is massive evidence that inter-human mitzvoth enjoy a major commitment among secular Jews. Beneath the divisiveness of traditional commitment lie underpinnings of religion such as compassion, humility, awe and even faith. Different are the pledges, but equal are the devotions. It may quite well be that the minds of the religious and not religious Jew do not fully meet, but their spirits touch. Who will deny that secular Jews have no sense of mystery, of forgiveness, beauty and gentleness? How many of them do not have inner faith that God cares or show great contempt for fraud or double standards? Each of them are the deepest of religious values.

This does not only call for a celebration but may well become an inspiration for religious Jews. This is not just done by honoring secular Jews for keeping these mitzvoth but in restoring ourselves in their mitzvoth and good deeds. There is a need to make the so called irreligious Jew aware of the fact that he is much more religious than he may realize. It is the realization that Gods light often shines on his/her face just as much, if not more, than on the face of the religious Jew.

A Jew is a Jew, a mitzvah a mitzvah - and all count to some degree. The more Jews are aware that whatever mitzvot they already do have dimensions and connections beyond imagination, the more integrated their observances will be, and the more room made for accumulating them naturally. Imagine if it were more widely known that eternity itself may be earned through one mitzvah. R. Menachem Gordon on Rambam Perush ha-Mishnah, Makkot 3:17;

...eternity may be earned through the performance of “any single mitzvah” of the taryag executed with perfect motive. Since for Maimonides olam ha-ba is a function of Divine knowledge—metaphysical contemplation of the Divine Unity, etc. (“davar gadol”)—and mitzvot ma’assiyot (“davar katan”) serve to foster precisely that end (Hilkhot Yesodei ha-Torah 4:13), the performance of any one precept promoting philosophic activity could be credited with boosting a man to immortality. The practical mitzvot encourage intellectuality, according to Maimonides, by creating an atmosphere [shared collectively by Jews - though deficient if one "microscopes" down to the individual level] conducive to reflection—namely, by disciplining the emotions and fostering a stable society...

To think how many mitzvot are done! And none are wasted! And how uniquely in Eretz Israel, where the Jewish population are so often "traditional" to one degree or another, are engaged in living in the Land and embrace many mitzvot that consciously identify them with the entirety of the historic Jewish nation and the yearnings of millenia of prayers and dreams;

The 58 agricultural mitzvot hatluyot baAretz, speaking Hebrew, counting the days of the week around Shabbat (yom rishon, yom sheni...) and not by the names of pagan gods, milchemet mitzvah (serving in the Israeli army), not to mention the fact that the many (and fundamentally important) mitzvot bein adam laChaveru (between fellow Jews) can and must be applied to [almost...] each and every person on the street. Even my all-too-high income and sales tax in Israel fulfill the mitzvah of tzedakah.

R. Wolpoe on Ben Ish Hai;

...the 248 [R'MaCh] positive commandments may be fulfilled WHEN the individual commits to "ahavah bein yisroel" [Ahavah being the Hebrew cognate of the Aramaic Racheim]. Thus the 248 are fulfilled by each individual by means of their mutual love.

Also R. Gordon here adds to the sources presented that encourage counting the mitzvot and positive, constructive acts of the non-Observant among those of the 'systematically' Observant, over attempting a justified place for pluralism as such, based on Rambam. Mitzvot and ethics can't be denied those who are not consistent in abiding all of them - including the self-identifying Orthodox.

Sinai as the Religious Experience of "the Person" Israel

Of recent in philosophy of religion, there has been discussion of the value of the "religious experience" for doxastic practice and epistemology, whether it has a place in the gauntlet of justifiable thinking (Alston, Plantinga, Clouser, etc). I'd like to see the collective experience of Am Israel at Sinai compared to these discussions of the meaning and significance of individual experiences. In part I'd like to ask it through 'evidence' - through ASCs (though they are only one aspect of the discussion of Religious Experiences, a hotly debated one at that); over the course of Yetziat Mitzraim, a lot of phenomena often described by individuals experiencing Altered States of Consciousness occurs regarding the entire nation Israel; synesthesia (crosswiring of the senses; hearing the lightning and seeing the thunder), Near Death Experience (a bit of a stretch, but isn't there Midrash about everyone dying?), etc. I wonder how such a comparison would affect the "Argument from Sinai", possibly refining it against certain kinds of critique.

I would also note that the 'standard' state of consciousness, lauded by 'rationalists' both 'secular' and religious - is regarded by the great number of historical human perspectives as being merely one of many, and often the least fruitful - Matrix-mind, a sleep state). The discussion of ASCs, Shamanic states (shamanism I think may be situated as "PreAdamic"), etc, deserves it's own post. See Charles Tart's website, links and similar recent discussion for implications pending me writing such a thing.

Also the equation of Israel not merely as a model nation, but as a model individual, collectively experiencing stages of human individual experience, growth and travail. There are those who say [sources to come] that of human entities, only Am Israel and individuals from among the Nations have Nefesh Ruach and Neshamah - the prerequisites to full engagement in Creation. Only they have an antiquity preceding Bavel, reaching to the First Man - before the nations were born. This could in part make a greater context for the phenomena of religious experiences, personal 'revelations', etc., throughout history while also limiting their significance beyond the individual stage.

[rambly bit]
The 'personal' nature of an encounter (also R. Eliezer Berkovits' lengthy discussion in God Man and history), as being no less real for being unscientific (though obiously not necessarily an encounter with 'the' Divine), for not being submitable to the gauntlet of the lab; also the inadmissability in Halacha of "Bat Kol", of insights that are not testable by others via argument, etc. similarly, personally experiences are submitted to communal 'testing' in many cultures (the famed Vision Quest, trances, etc). What could Sinai be compared to in the "marketplace" of human experiences? anything but individual religious experiences? How many nations, as such, were taken into Israel? Individuals could make "the connection", but as groups not a potentiality.

Such a comparison might also make things more 'interesting'; there are things we are Given by HKBH, that individuals of the nations achieve to receive - levels of refinement that are of one status in Torah rubrics that have a different status outside of it. Rav Kook notes the relatively low level of Olam Haba, since it is achieved by all Israel, even the lowest [emph mine];

I tend to think that the Rambam means to say that having a portion in the world-to-come is an inferior level (although it too is very great). Since even wicked and ignorant Jews attain it, it is–compared to [truly] spiritual levels–low. The Rambam says that intellectual awareness brings a person much closer to [understanding] the righteousness of God's Providence.
Therefore, having a portion in the world-to-come is a level attained by the righteous of the nations who have not attained an intellectual awareness, but who have rather accepted the faith simply, with heart-felt emotion, and have acted well, as a result of having accepted the concept that the commandments were given by God. But if a person has come to understand the seven Noahide commandments [*achieving, as a concept coorellary to the Noachide laws*] as a result of his own thinking, he is truly wise of heart and filled with understanding. Such a person is considered one of their wise men, for the trait of wisdom is very great. And it is superfluous to say that he has a portion in the world-to-come. [Indeed,] he stands on a holy level that needs to be spoken of with a fuller expression than "having a portion in the world-to-come."
Igrrot HaRa'ayah, v. 1, p.100

The Tiferet Israel notes distinction between the merit of Israel by inheritance and what those among the nations have by achievement;

"The advantage of the [other] nations over Israel is that they, through their own free choice and efforts made themselves – and this is certainly a greater [human] achievement than Israel, who were led toward perfection by the force of G-d and who therefore cannot claim the credit for what G-d did for them in the merit of their ancestors." Tiferet Yisrael to Avot 3:14

What has this to do with religious experiences? Individual religious experiences, achievements, may be of some import and even content, but not accumulate beyond the individual, and may not constitute much of a challenge - and not merely by dimissing all 'religious experience' as ultimately dillusional or epistemologically valueless. While we're at it, what is religious about religious eperience? Following Dooyeweerd's definition of 'religious' (as held by a great number of thinkers over the millenia), there is a profound poverty to the definition of religion as utilized in the secularist language game courts (and by the Kiruv people like to 'take them on at their own game'). Here and throughout my blog, I have gone at great length about 'religious', but I will just quickly say that the best definition of religious, the most perennially valid, encompasses the great number of theoretical systems of any complexity, including atheism, materialism, etc. That being said - 'religious' experiences of epiphany-type nature, of a sense of 'revelation', abound in secular realms of thought. Charles Tart has a nice site giving examples of such experiences on the part of scientists, but the sciences themselves are rife with incidences of dream-state revelation, non-rational cognition of central facts, etc, that have made for profound developments in the scientific endeavor[sources]. I only mention sciences, but these things have occured throughout human endeavors. None of this may need to be discounted to be nullified as challenges to Torah faith.

All this might relate to something I said a while back;

The various perspectives of the world - from atheist materialism, an 'after-life' or 'reincarnation' or whatever might emerge from a philosophy - could all be understood on their own terms as possible outcomes of lives lived in accord with their host philosophy - but they would neither amount to the state of Olam Haba, nor would they be related to it (I have considered this especially with "reincarnation" compared with gilgulim; perhaps gilgulim is an "upgrade" or souped up version of an otherwise natural phenomena known as "reincarnation"). This would make sense of the world of examples of "afterlife" phenomena of Non-Jews, including post-death contact, etc...as well as the phenomena of the Charedi Jewish kiruv literature on "Olam Haba"-related issues, which abounds with Non-Jewish source material about "afterlife" and "reincarnation"!!!

Perhaps in what is said above, we could exchange 'olam haba' for many other concepts and phenomena - distinguishing their value as products or experiences of individuals, or beliefs assented to by nations, vs. what we experienced at Sinai and how we believe or should be believing (also distinctions between 'assenting' to a belief vs actually grasping it, Rambam's perspective vs. those of others on it all, etc).

What is seemingly an infinitely tiny molecule in this immense universe (individual achievement), is (through Am Israel - not Am Israel as such), evidenced as the way to the source of the universe itself.

Non-Evidentialism and being reasonable
Kelly James Clark, a Reformed Epistemologist (though Protestant christian in nature, the concepts precede their particular formulation), suggests that proofs and arguments are a valid means of suggesting truths - but they are provisional or "personal" in that they depend on the individual they are proffered to; an "argument from design" is going to be received in accord with the biases - cultural, intelligence, etc - of the individual, for example.
I want to add a spin to it; though we take Creation (though not causation), as a unprovable Maxim, proving comes from within as a proof of the Added Dimension of the Creation humankind (this is not an acceptance of the idea of "blind faith"; more on that later). We are responsible for making the proofs, making sense of the world, being the source of dis-illusionment for the better (this is not an acceptance of relativism; more on that later...). This is a personal process, and nations and corporations not being people (despite international legal structures to the contrary), don't have the same affect in the world as even one human individual does; nations do not have Tzelem Elokim, only people do (Rav Kook and Einstein have stated accordingly; Rav Kook does so explicitly from Kabbalah, Einstein met Rav Kook and they spoke on such stuff, so Rav Kook may be the source of Einstein's articulation of the idea). Israel as a collective do have an 'individual' dimension, and experienced Sinai in a capacity in accord with their nature.
Anyways, I don't think this 'personalizing' or 'customizing' is exclusive to the phenomena of proving and logic, reason, etc. I have in mind to bring up later how a Sefer Torah is treated like a person, and how (though not quite like above), when questions of 'belief' arise, we should conceive of our relationship to G-d and His Torah as we do regarding relationships,
other persons; if you ask for "proof" your parents exist (let alone the attribute of "loving you"; the nature of attributes are another interesting "proof" issue), you're probably going to get a potch/slap that your deserve. You don't submit Mom or Dad to methods of proof that are bound to things - especially not your mother! (you should call her BTW). In a similar sense, the Divine aspect of Torah is perhaps not argued to - it's argued from. And like so much of what is taken to be Divine in the world, we really are arguing from it not for it, often with no knowledge it's happening or that that is what we're doing. to be edited.

“Know [there is a] God”

boy is this garbled.

Many Kiruv groups and individuals give proof-texts for a commandment to [in R. Noach Weinberg’s words from his “Lakewood Sessions”…I mean tapes]

“Know there is 'a' God”

…using them as a springboard to argue that “Judaism is an intellectual religion”, that - unlike “The Others”….Judaism is about “reasoned facts and arguments, not blind faith” (and other Hellenistic dualisms; see Faur’s ‘law review’ piece, Kolbrener review essay, etc).

IMHO, the proof-texts actually prove, over and again, that we already believe in a category of the Divine (for which 'classical religious' proofs have been - offered and refuted), in the most thorough and precise use of the term;

"Central to every religion is a teaching about what is divine—about what is regarded as utterly independent and on which all else depends. No matter what or whom any religion considers to be divine, that is what it recognizes or defines as the unconditional reality. The divine, in other words, is whatever people consider to be uncaused and unpreventable—as "just there."

The crucial point for our discussion is that this definition of religion makes clear that ideas of divinity are not confined to traditions most people recognize as "religious." Some people trust various parts of this world as divine. For example, some ascribe unconditional or uncaused status to matter, or to mathematical, logical or biological laws, or to the universe as a whole...Whatever is regarded as ultimate, independent reality thereby has the status of divinity, no matter how it is conceived and regardless of whether it is worshipped. Worship is not essential to religion; there have been beliefs in gods that did not include worship and there still are versions of Hinduism and Buddhism that include no worship...No matter how thoroughly some people avoid all organized religious traditions, worship, doctrines, and practices, and no matter how sincere they are about being atheists, they still have a religious belief insofar as they regard anything as being utterly independent or uncaused while all else depends on it.

I also think that the fulfillment of the Mitzvah is more likely to hold specifically YKVK and no one/thing else as The Divine - based on the specific relationship deriving from participation in the people Israel, their history and their God (all accessed through Covenant), as yours. Maybe this would be a clear historical and precise *opposite* of the ambiguous claim that Rambam’s codification is fulfilled by cognizing rather-ambiguous arguments for ‘The Divine’ (recently posted about by R. Gil and browbeaten by R. Eliezer Berkovits in "God, Man and History")?

I think the acknowledgment of a priori belief in the category of the Divine that HKBH surpasses, is quite different from claiming, “HKBH is a Deity whom we submit to a gauntlet of metaphysical proofs”. You don’t prove your experience to others w/o resorting to non-particulars of your experience, thus making it no longer yours (but the problem is that the Jewish experience is "Ours" - not based solely individual experiences or proofs). If any specifically-Jewish proofs are involved, they are what we prove from, not to YKVK, as our covenanted Divine (ex., He spoke to us, told us, showed us, He did such-and-such for, etc, that He - and no other elohim - YKVK, is God) - because to argue to HKBH (as with other arguments for what one holds to be Divine), is to risk presupposing another faculty, or the emergent evidence from several cognitive processes/faculties - as the foundation of all foundations (Berkovits chapters 5 & 7). And we can only tell others what He Spoke/Told/Showed/Did for us. R. Jose Faur noted;

"In the introduction to his work Or Adon-y, Crescas pointed out that the fulfillment of a commandment [as a commandment] presupposes the belief in God who had issued the commandment. Hence it is absurd to maintain that there is a commandment to believe in God, since such a commandment must presuppose the belief in a God.
This criticism overlooks the foregoing distinction between intuitive and rational knowledge of God. Maimonides distinguished between the first kind of knowledge, that is intuitive, at the subspeech level, and cannot be considered a commandment, and the second kind of knowledge, that must be expressed within the realm of reason and therefore may be the object of a commandment. the first kind of knowledge is, in Maimonides' words, "the foundation of all foundations and the pillar of wisdom", and thus cannot be a commandment.

Many arguments presuppose (and their ‘kashered’ versions seemingly do so unknowingly), the defining feature of that which is sought to be proven - and as a result, in a sense proclaim the “God game” has just started at what is actually halftime (i.e., much of the groundwork has already been laid, the game already played, by the time they start to even ‘keep score’). Many of them also presupposed a 'detachment' from the 'object' being measured, weighed and judged...but He Spoke to us at Sinai! He led us out of Egypt! It seems to be a patent adoption of Greek modes of thought solely for Kiruv-izing the Greek-minded "Not yet 'Frum'" Jews (on the part of people who define themselves by the Greek-named ideology of "Ortho-dox"...). This sounds to be an adoption of a sort of non-relationship the nations, born as collectives at Bavel, have with HKBH by default - and even depicted in the 'distant sky god' polytheisms and ensuing theologies and extended-family scientific cousin Ologies - (Derech Hashem). Individuals were not born at Bavel, and there may lay their intuitive knowledge of the Divine (personal, r. Berkovits' "no science[nor empirical evidence] of the personal", experiential, etc) - but not in the manner the collective-individual Israel experienced. [addition 4/08: Maybe, as I have said elsewhere, we are obligated to make evidence for ourselves - by way of our observance, introspection and experiences - regarding the Divine; "Perhaps certain 'necessary' beliefs are emergent beliefs (but only 'emerging' from within the Divine system, the specific Jewish logic ,temporally-bound only by merit of occurring in history), that sustain, specifically for us, those very Truths which are always true. For example, that Sinai was an Encounter with HKBH and from that moment onwards we received Torah, revelation as text, by way of Moses, etc. There are Truths which all indeed have agreed upon {which makes this not merely individual, but also collective} (and be agreed upon to be considered part of the System) - but each era needing its way of making them thoroughly clear to each "us" in each unique era, as ours - and perhaps that is where 'necessary' truths - and the heated arguments and 'proofs' for them - come about. Our reception of Torah each era, each person". this appears ever more necessary, because mere emotional 'convictions' can come and go (R. Kook on the importance of balance in emotion and reason, etc), especially under the torrential onslaught of modern media, etc.]

Recent discussion of the “God gene” and the neurological basis for Divine beliefs (however interpreted), may lend credence to the particulars of this critique [links later].

“know this day…that YKVK is [the] God” (Deut 4:39)

The people are told to grasp that YKVK - HooHa Elokim – is the Divine; the ability to do so presupposes their a priori belief in the category of the Divine; knowledge must begin somewhere, with something or someone. But Israels collective knowing (special to them and no others, as collectives), began with The Encounter (and Deut. 29:3 “YKVK did not give you a heart to understand, or eyes to see, or ears to hear, until this day”?) – not in some individually-grasped argument or metaphysical speculations – in an encounter, a relationship (especially from verse 32; though we do have the tradition that they grasped *the same collective experience* in individually-unique ways). All further proof-texts from Nakh would seem to be in the aftershock of the Encounter of Maamar Sinai (see Berkovits pp. 48-50). There is no further national Encounter (as such?), in Tanach(?); everything afterwards occurs through individual Prophets and Sages, who rely on the evidence of the encounter and the witness (validated by the Stipulated standards) from previous generations who keep alive the memory (Berkovits ch.5) of the Encounter.

Know the God of your father, and serve Him with a whole heart and a willing soul”
(I Chron. 28:9)
Know whom you know to be HKBH through the mesorah of one (David haMelekh), who is already in a relationship with Him, to whom the nature of service is clear.

Let him that [already] glories [in something] glory in this; that he understands and knows Me...says YKVK”. (Jer. 9:23)
This is known from HKBH Himself through a Navi! Upon hearing this, the Jews didn’t proclaim “helloyeswhat?…sorry…whom says what?”, because everyone knew full-well who He is to them from previous Neviim and the Torah they propounded. Naviut was a means of insight that already had a place in a Torah system already accepted by the people, in The Encounter.

Jose Faur notes in [] that such a grasp of the Divine is intuitive and that Rambam in Mishneh Torah does indeed obligate us in that which is in a sense intuitive and already a reasonably valid and cognitively-universal belief (truth value of claims as such aside).

But why obligate in something that appears to be both intuitive (philosophically speaking), and neurological in origin (cognitively-speaking; again links to come)? Assenting to individually-grasped proofs for the Divine, even for The Encounter, can’t be fulfillments of this collectively-binding mandate (?).

Belief in the category of the Divine is ubiquitous and beyond the purview of proof (serving as the basis for tradition-bound logics, moralities, etc), and is likely neurological; belief in YKVK is the Jewish experience and vice versa [also w/ Rambam’s contention about who is Israel, those who claim beliefs determine status, etc], and not something that is strengthened by appeals to that which isn’t particularly Jewish - Jewish being cognizable by The Encounter.

Stipulating that it is ‘commanded’ puts it in the category of being covenanted to one Divinity as THE Divine; as with other things that may come naturally for all people, all people are not obligated in knowing in the way Israel is - as they are specially obligated in a personal relationship to, say, God OUR father - and not simply ‘father’. Each Jew as a Jew is obligated in what comes naturally for all as individuals; particular collectives come and go - but individuals as such always remain. Personal narratives about “divine experiences” abound, even, if one follows Clouser's definition, in the sciences. And may even be considered empirically explicable (or not), or rationally acceptable as claims (‘properly basic beliefs’, etc). Plenty of religions have begun based on the presumed credibility of the claims of such individual experiences (truth-value claims aside). But only one narrative survives that is a national experience - and I said ‘surviving’ to allow for a moment of conjecture; in this solitary surviving narrative we are actually challenged to find an additional surviving national account. Brains are universal, such experiences and "God/Divine genes" are likewise so and as natural as other processes, and can't be rallied one against another due to the universal foundations of all grand scale theorizings -explicitly-religious or nay.

How many of the verses brought in defense of the claim that there is an obligation in knowing the Divine to be YKVK were spoken over specifically to the nation (or to be spoken over to the nation Israel), or presupposed the national revelation to make sense as proof-texts? HKBH does have interaction with individuals not of the nation Israel in Tanach (regarding those who merit his ‘contact’ in our generation or it's relation to sheva mitzvot, I have no idea). Adam is the father of all mankind, but precisely as individuals - because nations began at Migdal Bavel. The nations as such, according to Rav Kook, do not have Neshamah - but individuals of the nations do (in accord with Derech Hashem, not the Tanya), and there is account for their observance of their laws.

other stuff;

Davidson, Herbert. “Study of philosophy as a Religious Obligation”; Religion in a Religious Age p.53-68

Jose Faur pieces -perhaps with his claim that YH 1:1, etc is Jewish-specific as also Elohim-type grasp of the Divine as such; we are the model people, and therefore all other individuals also have an intuitive grasp. Otherwise, how could there be converts (almost exclusively individual…), at all, how could there be any sort of communication between peoples, how could there be any comparison to make, etc; Markham and difficulties of ‘translation’, etc. (that others like Christians/Muslims/Sikhs doctrinally discuss personal relationships with Divine as personal Deity - is because of our encounter as the Jewish people - which they read/heard about).

Yesodei HaTorah opening, what is stated regarding “foundation of all foundations”; Faur takes it as an intuitive knowledge that is only had by Israel; does this militate against an “Elokim” reading? Also first chapter of Avodat Kochavim. Eugene Korn piece on Rambam, 'world to come", etc (also search RAMBI for discussion of Y.H.)

Not merely that “belief in God can be considered properly basic”, i.e. rational to posit without recourse to proofs, arguments or evidences. This may actually be said to specifically and weakly.

Say it once more with feeling;

belief in the Divine is the only thing that is ever 'properly basic', and it therefore may be impossible to ever justify it by recourse to proofs, arguments or evidences - without ultimately being self-referential. If one accepts Clouser's definition of the Divine (though he learns it from Dooyeweerd, and both show the ubiquity and antiquity of it), if one can prove ones maxims [axioms?], they aren’t maxims [axioms?]

. Clouser/Dooyeweerd, religious presuppositions, etc.

I'm beginning to realise that one of my main bones of contention with 'modern' orthodoxy and orthodoxy is the conviction of the individual as self-constitutive, as 'making oneself', the individual. I believe we are human only as a result of contact and conviviality with what is not human; our perception, our beliefs our theories. I believe there are other beings. I cringe at the words of The Rav about the 'dead matter' of the world, of the "making oneself" - that's awful lonely. and it explains a lot from someone who authored, reflecting on religion in the Now...the lonely man of faith. If faith is trust, and trust is established through relationship - how does that frame of mind make sense?

Rav Soloveitchik and The World
I'm beginning to realise that one of my main bones of contention with 'modern' orthodoxy and orthodoxy is the conviction of the individual as self-constitutive, as 'making oneself', the individual. I believe we are human only as a result of contact and conviviality with what is not human; our perception, our beliefs our theories and the world that is around us, of nature and man. I believe there are other...beings. Why do I feel so strange articulating that? I cringe at the words of The Rav about the 'dead matter' of the world, of the "making oneself" - that's awful lonely. And it explains a lot from someone who authored, reflecting on religion in the Now..."The Lonely Man of Faith".

More Avraham Avinu "Deep Critique" Radicalism
vs. Contemporary "lifestyle Liberalism"

Derrick Jensen;

Would any sane person think dumpster diving would have stopped Hitler, or that composting would have ended slavery or brought about the eight-hour workday, or that chopping wood and carrying water would have gotten people out of Tsarist prisons, or that dancing naked around a fire would have helped put in place the Voting Rights Act of 1957 or the Civil Rights Act of 1964? [all matters that had historical precident solutions in modalities fostered by deeply transpersonal, society-wide Biblical Ethical Monotheism - ironically condemned and lambasted by Jensen et al as being the source of the problem] Then why now, with all the world at stake, do so many people retreat into these entirely personal “solutions”?

Part of the problem is that we’ve been victims of a campaign of systematic misdirection. Consumer culture and the capitalist mindset have taught us to substitute acts of personal consumption (or enlightenment) for organized political resistance. An Inconvenient Truth helped raise consciousness about global warming. But did you notice that all of the solutions presented had to do with personal consumption—changing light bulbs, inflating tires, driving half as much—and had nothing to do with shifting power away from corporations, or stopping the growth economy that is destroying the planet? Even if every person in the United States did everything the movie suggested, U.S. carbon emissions would fall by only 22 percent. Scientific consensus is that emissions must be reduced by at least 75 percent worldwide.

Or let’s talk water. We so often hear that the world is running out of water. People are dying from lack of water. Rivers are dewatered from lack of water. Because of this [what "this" is seems clear, but our ecoystemic knowledge of water systems is bracketed by our knowledge of economic and political systems] we need to take shorter showers. See the disconnect? Because I take showers, I’m responsible for drawing down aquifers? Well, no. More than 90 percent of the water used by humans is used by agriculture and industry. The remaining 10 percent is split between municipalities and actual living breathing individual humans. Collectively, municipal golf courses use as much water as municipal human beings. People (both human people and fish people) aren’t dying because the world is running out of water. They’re dying because the water is being stolen.

An exchange on this article appears here. I hear an awful lot that's pertinent to current Jewish religious banter here; our individual acts (sins/mitzvot), are often described as accumulating to make global/communal difference in either social or spiritual capacities (depending on if you're closer to the 'rationalist' or kiruvy Charedi "spiritual" approaches). Such perspectives are often sold with the accompanying counsel on "what you can do" to make "a difference"; those who implant these perspectives want you to see them as the source of the Jewish route to feeling re-empowered, now through their particular Jewish route).

I think there are also similar "misdirections" on the Jewish societal level, steering away from making any system-wide critiques, which might risk shifting ones own perspective on a deep level away from the sanctioned Jewish perspectives. For example, strategic removal of particular teachers is seen as a 'concrete' step in ending sexual abuse in schools - but there is huge debate about reconsidering student/teacher power structures that might "risk" solving several problems at once, but also make for dangerously-democratic and less authoritarian educational settings...

Asking questions of any [dominant] Jewish system can indeed lead to doubts about that Jewish systemization as such...- which can, regretably, lead to dissention from religious modalities themselves (Torah, the inheritance of Israel). but they are more likely to lead to disillusionment and dissention in belief in comparably-recent human institutions (C/O/R Judaisms, Yeshiva world, etc), that may have religious motivations, but not be sacred and hallowed by time unto themselves. Such disillusionment frequently occurs, and is celebrated by the Orthodox when Conservative and Reform-affiliated Jews become [Orthodox-identifying] Observant, lamented when Orthodox kids go Off "the" Derech. But even such dissent is rarely all-or-nothing (systematic). Faranak Margolese determined that upwards of 60+% of adults who left Orthodoxy still believe in God and Torah from Heaven, and maintain certain observances.

The noble goal of consistancy and purity of deed and creed (mitzvot include deeds as well as beliefs), sounds to goal of "lifestyle liberalism", but I fear we are in a state now where "Avrahamic" radical critique may very well be the only way forward through the tyranny of Galut, rife with patriarchy, destruction of the natural world and moral decay, and our coercion into relying on such a system.

But when has all of Klal Israel honestly been fully, systematically observant without some society-wide element of coercion? When Jewish communities met Enlightenment ideas, the capacity of the rabbis and leaders to coerce fell - and so did observance on a huge scale. Is the Ghost of Cain in everything that we do? Is Rav Solveitchik's "Two Adams" as much pathological as it is "progress", technology, science and "dominion" over the earth? We are now in a situation where we are in a network of pathological, counteracting relationships, within Judaism and the greater world.

I think there is a component of the "the source of the problem is the source of the solution", if we admit certain things we already speak. Torah and Tanakh is multivocal. Tanakh contains events and settings in the world at large (expelled from eden, mabul, famines, etc), that are the basis for decisions positive and negative, and condemns the behaviors of certain figures in our history. I think it is doing just that..it's not present in the text merely to prove their sacred origin because, for example, "no other human works condemn in their founding texts condemnations of the founders". Nor is Tanakh giving a little mere environmental background for the Avot changing their social setting. Many societal systems are protrayed therein, some condemned as whole systems, some evidently shared by Israel, changed due to external environmental circumstances, some we transition from and to. But in all of them, we're to have a certain ethic. And interestingly, the social consequences of the narrative of the Mabul included a change in diet and lifeways evidenced in a new convenant with all the Nefesh creatures. We maintain memory of all of this by learning and recounting the deeds and lives of the Avot, from Adam on, transition from Eden to the city-state of Ur and out to the wondering pastoralism to entering Mitzraim.

Tanakh in the hands of the Nations has indeed been used to justify imperialism, slavery, patriarchy, environmental degradation, etc, etc. And at the same time it has been evidenced as being a true awakening away from such negatives as they blossomed in the ancient world. Even as a system, R. Nahum Rabinovitch shows that Judaism can been seen as weening away from certain of it's own Divinely Decreed observances that are no longer morally justifiable - due to the proliferation of other Torah moral principles.

More later, gym beckons.

"The people I talk to I cannot daven with...the people I daven with, I cannot talk to"

This popular adage from German-Israeli Professor Ernst Simon (the exact form of it I have from R. David Weiss Halivni from his "The Book and the Sword" [a picture with heart I just found], where he states he'd heard the wording himself), may be more complex than merely a commentary on historical scholarship and emunah.
I recently found a statement by Zvi Zameret in Winter 1971 edition of Conservative Judaism, that in conversation, R. Joseph Dov Ber Soloveitchik asked of Ernst Simon why he associated with the Conservative movement (I am assuming in Israel?). His response was;

"I can pray with Orthodox Jews, but after services, I can hardly share a word with them. But I can both pray and converse with Conservative Jews".

This adds profoundly to the whole nature of the popularly attributed quote, for which I have found no actual attribution aside from R. David Weiss Halivni. It goes from speaking about his widely-known, but personal and lonely reconciliation with two incommensurate perspectives to say the same individual ultimately found community - and this fact was spoken over to a specific - and renowned - individual.

I offer this only as an historical curiosity, not commentary on the Conservative/Masorti movements as they presently exist - though I think something like the potential-split of the Episcopal Church from the world Anglican Movement will happen, in some sense, with the Conservative movement.

Syrians and Converts
How useful are misinterpretations! From the comments section of this post on a Times article several years ago [my emph];

Oct. 15, 2007
Letters to the Editor, Magazine
The New York Times
620 Eighth Ave. New York, NY 10018
To the Editor,

Jakie Kassin is the son and grandson of rabbis and a dynamic do-gooder, but he is neither a rabbi nor a scholar of Judaic studies. The statements attributed to him in “The SY Empire” (Zev Chafets, Oct. 14, 2007) are a gross distortion of Judaism as well as of the 1935 Edict promulgated in the Syrian Jewish community of Brooklyn. That Edict was enacted to discourage community members from intermarrying with non-Jews. It acknowledged the reality of the time that conversions were being employed insincerely and superficially. Accordingly, conversion for marriage to a member of the community was automatically rejected.

However, it is important in this regard to clarify the policy of the community rabbinate and particularly that of the long-time former chief rabbi of the community, Jacob S. Kassin (the originator of the Edict), and his son, the present chief rabbi, Saul J. Kassin. I quote from an official formulation of the Sephardic Rabbinical Council of several years ago that reflects their position: “1. A conversion not associated with marriage that was performed by a recognized Orthodox court – such as for adoption of infants or in the case of an individual sincerely choosing to be Jewish – IS accepted in our community. 2. If an individual not born to a member of our community had converted to Judaism under the aegis of an Orthodox court, and was observant of Jewish Law, married a Jew/Jewess who was not and had not been a member of our community, their children are permitted to marry into our community.” Based on these standards a goodly number of converts have been accepted into the community. Genetic characteristics play no role whatsoever.

No rabbi considers sincere and proper conversions “fictitious and valueless.” (The comma in the English translation cited in the article that gives that impression was the result of a mistranslation by a layman, a matter I made clear to Mr. Chafets when we spoke.)
In addition, the quote claiming that even other Jews are disqualified from marrying into the community “if someone in their line was married by a Reform or Conservative rabbi” is a totally false portrayal of community rabbinical policy. Many Ashkenazim whose parents were married by such rabbis have married into our community.

Sincerely,
Moshe Shamah
Rabbi, Sephardic Synagogue
511 Ave. RBrooklyn, NY 11223

Posted by: Rabbi Moshe Shamah October 17, 2007 at 02:57 PM

The "fact" remains that no laymen or rabbi I have EVER met, Ashki or Sephardi - has ever displayed any knowledge of these distortations as anything but "fact". For them the "ban" would seem to be clear and unambiguous. If these distortions are so obvious and serious as to be called distortions and corrected, by a rabbi of the Syrian Community, via source material from the originator of the edict itself - how is it possible that no one seems aware of them as distortions? An earlier example from R. Shamah I recall was available on his website - I since have not been able to find it there, but even earlier in 1994 he had posted in to a widely-read Jewish listserv [my emph];

Perusing previous m-j postings I noticed there was discussion on the Brooklyn Syrian community's decree not to accept converts. It appears there was a misunderstanding which should be clarified.

The decree focuses on those who convert for the purpose of marrying a Jew or Jewess. A non-Jew who is clearly motivated by marriage but who sincerely and properly converts, should normally be accepted halakhically. However, the Syrian rabbis realized they were being fooled by insincere candidates, etc. and established the 1935 decree not to accept those who were converting in conjunction with a prospective or past marriage. The decree was not addressed to those who converted just for the love of Judaism.

This was vividly brought home to me about 25 years ago by Rabbi Jacob S.Kassin, HKBH send him speedy recovery, the long-time chief rabbi of the Brooklyn Syrian community and one of the 1935 takana signatories. A [SY]community member who was also a member of an Ashkenazi yeshiva married a righteous convert. The marriage was performed by a leading Ashkenazi rosh hayeshiva. The Shabbat morning after the wedding he davened in our [SY] shul. The mesader aliyot (gabbay) rushed to Shaare Zion where Rabbi Kassin davened and asked him what to do. Rabbi Kassin said he's familiar with the case and it doesn't fall into the takana as the bride is a righteous convert who previously converted independently of marriage considerations and we should give the gentleman an aliya. Although the mesader was reliable I wanted to confirm this and several days later personally asked Rabbi Kassin. He got a bit excited and declared, "The takana is not for this woman - she's a REFUGEE who came to Judaism."

I acknowledge and celebrate that Syrian Jews have a virtually-non-existant intermarriage rate - with Non-Jews - but I know plenty who are very intermarried with Ashkis and some so accultrated that their mezzuzot are angled, they cut their challah, eat Ashki food on Shabbat, sing "Shir HaMaalot" in birkhat ha Mazon...but that's a different, and often personal matter.

What has helped them maintain this low intermarriage rate IS NOT THE TAKANAH - it is a carefully perpetuated and stringently-"held"-to misunderstanding of the circumstances the ban applied to - thus a "strict obedience" to a misunderstanding of halacha, an error spoken over and repeated and believed sincerely by them; those who perceive the ban in accord with this error may very well be at heart in violation of the spirit of the very halacha behind the ban - and it would seem saved only from trouble by the fact that they say the same Amidah that all observant Jews do (which features a clear recognition of righteous converts), and that they recognize that the takanah applies only to their kehilla. I think there is evidence of this even being known by the rabbis of the community; The marriage in the example above was not performed in the setting of the Chattans community...perhaps due to the socially-useful false perception of the takanah; best not to publicize exceptions, no matter how clear and legitimate and sanctioned by God and halacha. I'm not saying, GOD FORBID that the rabbis of the SY community are doing anything halachically or morally wrong - just deeply political. I question more the pretentions of the many people in the community who so sincerely and "piously" follow what has been detailed above as a violation of halacha. Rest assured, Gerei Tzedek have thusly been alienated in such communities, in violation of an obligation declared some 36 times in Torah - against alienating a Ger.

Torah & Science From a Different Angle
[juuust a mock up]

"Torah lo b'Shamayim he" and l'hvdl Methodological Materialism

Torah and tevah, the Book of Torah and the Book of the World. Over time, I've heard many examples of 'the sciences' being 'reconciled' with Torah - usually physics, less so biology, even less the social sciences; this breakdown strikes me as "Intelligent Design" of a sort. Though we claim science is of one world, and applies uniformly within it, do we make claims of 'special creation' in historical matters, even where Tanach or the Tradition does not?

-In biological history, evolution compared with Jewish history & the social sciences; Holmes Rolston, Loren Eiseley, Teihard de Chardin, their awe-struck voices on the natural world and their reflections in Heschel, etc., who engage historical-critical process, history, etc and Yahadut.

-Solomon's role in the building of the Temple as metaphor in its application to Torah text as well as the world. Narrative/Science (Rolston), and history in creation, Shemtot, etc. that which has 'occured' in both Jewish history and world history (microcosm/macrocosm).

-The claims of Torah "rationalists" and their claimed 'advocacy' of science; Yad Hashem, miracles, supernatural causes, etc, in judaism treated as 'outdated' - seemingly based on outmoded expectations/conceptions of science (deriving from Aristotlianism, etc?). Present examples of frontline advocates for science (Jewish and non-Jewish - since "true science" is both/neither...) and their supernatural views - and the evidence they would offer for the rationality of accepting traditional models of miracles, supernatural agents, based in mainstream sciences limits, etc.

-Just as the "Book of Nature" is in a perilous place by our hands - such is Yahadut; trenchant 'sanctity' given to the divisions of denominations - where observance is supposed to be the measure of 'sanctity'. The Torah 'rationalist' modernists and the 'Daas Torah' camp, neither of which are necessarily either (nor are they necessarily the 'camps' they see themselves as). converging theological catastrophes on par with environmental, economic and social ones?

-The distinction of being Told something (revelation) as opposed to coming to know or believe independently (reason, science, etc). While independent realisation is indicative of real development, it is not communal, not communication. being Told entails relationship, engagement - not dispassionate analysis (R. Eliezer Berkovits on encounter and 'no science of the personal,' maybe Greenberg essay on BibCrit). In regard to the "independent-knowing" sciences - it is quite likely that we would not come to know nature in the depth and dimensions we do, if we were not Told certain things that are not among the deliverances of reason; fundamental presuppositions necessary for science are Biblical - not 'religious', not ultimately emergent - Biblical. I started this post with Methodological Materialism and "Torah lo b'Shamayim he"; here I think is such a common substrate; both entail certain meta-principles that aren't reasoned to, they're reasoned from; ultimately, they must be Told - though overtime we may so assume them that we forget their Divine source, ourselves (as Jews) so emerged from them. Here, both science and Yahadut/Halacha share emergence from Torah. huh.
This, among many simanim, is an indication that Torah has at the very least something Divine to its narrative (no 'contentless revelation' here; though that may be the case some other way). If even a fragment resulted from the Encounter (Berkovits quote), Torah as the account of it would still be Torah from HKBH; encounter and ensuing relationship is central. How is it logical, even by "Conservative" theologians, to 'hint' that HKBH is absent in the account of a covenanting conversation between God and man!? How can one claim mitzvot aren't defining from such a conversation? I'm not presenting a perspective from "classical" Conservative judaism - where mere history, culturally-'developed' and accumulated 'achieved' beliefs and ideas, and accumulate some "binding authority" of Revelation. History does not hallow - HKBH Hallows history! With obvious caveats I offer Louis Jacobs;

"It is exceedingly difficult, if not impossible, to account for the lofty teachings of the Hebrew Prophets, the civilising influence of the great Law of Moses, the history of a small people who found God and brought Him to mankind [this is really the case if content was '2nd' to Encounter in Jacobsian sense - where HKBH Revealed Himself - far surpassing the Giving of 'mere' text, temporal content], the Sinaitic revelation itself and the spiritual power these books continue to exercise over men's souls, unless Israel really met with God and recorded in immortal language the meaning of that encounter. We can be sceptical of the individual details in the Bible. We can dwell on the numerous parallels with Egyptian, Babylonian and Assyrian mores. We can point the striking resemblances between Hebrew poetry in the Bible and Canaanite hymns in praise of the pagan gods...[look up this cutout bit yourself if you're curious]...What cannot be seriously doubted is the 'something else', which has ensured that this and no other collection of books has become the sacred Scripture of a large proportion of mankind; that there are living Jews who regard themselves as the heirs to the Bible and no living Babylonians, Canaanites, and Assyrians (OK, except them...); that there is a Voice which speaks here..." Louis Jacobs, Faith, p.107

This is Louis Jacobs speaking! One of the people who would really know what an academic challenge to Judaism is and is not!..Actually, I should have prefaced it with "and some less obvious caveats"; even Jacobs is ignorant of certain voices from the mesorah itself that temper the challenge of his 'critical' approach, as I keep discovering in reading him...especially here.

Academia narrows its focus down to "what can be quantified" in the tradition, and as a result deals with an expurgated tradition, an expurgated text. If not for the the fact that Am Israel Chai, "Wissenshaft de Judentums" would seem to be as any other science. In painting this picture of Israel, it is as a Divine/Human dialogue rendered as human monologue (in a sense, noted by Jon Levenson). Expurgated from the above God/Torah/Israel equation is He who Authors the very greater, mathematical-logical context that is all Creation, in which Jewish history, the setting of the Great Tri-alogue - occurs. This 'monologue-ification' is noteworthy and ominous among quasi-'Orthodox' postmodern 'halachic Judaisms' that claim full observance and learning 'Without Foundations' - even academically-aware Conservative Judaism [and Orthodox?...] articulated - if erroneously - foundations!
In such a setting, one can tragically have "non-denominational" people sitting and learning, etc, each with no idea that they are each studying something completely different based on what their presuppositions are; some - however open to scholarship - are not only engaging in Talmud Torah, they're studying Divrei Hashem, they're taking part in an ongoing dialogue with the Divine. Others, even their chavruta, are studying, literally, empty words, human legalisms and cultural expression. Unless you cognate that you are in a conversation, how can it be said you're in one? If you refuse to read the Words of The Other, Gans Anders, as they sit before you (and as they sat before those before you), as OTHER than merely human words?

Regarding the natural world as Creation; natural processes such as evolution do not, of necessity, limit their very Creator or exhaust His attributes - just as Jewish history, to the degree natural processes apply there - do not proscribe HKBH or indicate the fullness of His Godliness; a painting/novel does not exhaust or reveal fully it's creator! - it only reveals what is Placed there - in humans, knowingly or unknowlingly (an interesting place for HKBH being "all knowing" in intellect while fully conciousness?). In this sense, we know from nature only of Him what it is built to tell us (Berkovits and the proliferation of the view of the universe as created among non-Jewish-related faiths). But Israel was Told Torah, Told the ways and degrees which we can perceive Him through nature on a new level, not deduced from horizontal relationship with nature alone! Evolution as a tool in Divine hands, like history, etc., as a means of indicating and obscuring - functions both in explication on His part and 'coming-to-know' on our part. Compare to 'ID vs. Dawkins' et al.; both religious fundamentalists and militant secular skeptics benefit from the public false presumptions of "what scholarship can tell us"; both would like to say science is Scientism, and it deconstructs and reduces all 'religion', either unsucessfully (as fundamentalists would believe) or successfully. The reality is that the very design of science's nets limit what it can catch, etc. ex of pro-evolution religious scientists, etc.

-"If one acknowledges HKBH as the Divine and Creator, where is the challenge in evolution, etc as how His universe was made?"; we say this of physical creation - is it possible to apply the it to other "scientific" challenges to Yahadut? If we find astounding unlikehoods and amazing precisions ("fine-tuned" cosmos, etc), in what we believe to be an evolved universe, why of necessity fear the same in Yahadut?; Jewishly, we say this about accuracies in Torah, about amazing literary patterns and structures, etc - and we say it about a Divinely-authored, evolved universe, but we don't put them together. When taken together, at the very least, there are points where we need not be challenged [the links there are must reads], by BibCrit pretentions any more than by opinions of Dawkins, etc - particularly when so many of their own scientific peers are religious and accept methodological materialism - and its limits. Compare to BibCrit and again, stated limits of what biblical critics say they can even postulate on. Of special note is the recent engagement of some Modern Orthodox theologians with James Kugel (read especially my comments in the...comments section). I would add, even if certain of the fundamental evidences of Biblical Criticism were true - there are many things left unexplained by the approach, narrative and law that are left unaddressed; anachronistic and accurate details that indicate Egyptian setting for much of the Exodus narratives (and similar 'fixing' details) where this would violate certain assumptions about the dating of 'sources', leitworten, literary structures that defy the classifications and determining signifiers of 'sources', etc, etc.

-'masorti', scholarship, belief & observance ramble, HKBH Sanctioning our decisions about what we believe regarding Him and the fact of divergent beliefs over Jewish history by Sages, etc; He exceeds each of these claims individually, cumulative tradition and HKBHs method of 'measuring out' to the prophets (R. Kook, R. Fisher), let alone us, what is necessary for us to know/believe, for our mission, etc.

-Example of Moshiach from "Meta-Halakhah, halakhah as comprehensive system that will inevitably 'emerge' Moshiach - potential in every generation. this would be so regardless of how halakhah changes, if we propose that it's prime features are non-modelability, etc.

"Science & Religion" 2006

From the introduction to Holmes Rolston's magnificent "Science and Religion";

"The religion that is married to science today will be a widow tomorrow. The sciences in their multiple theories and forms come and go. Biology in the year 2050 may be as different from the biology of today as the religion of today is from the religion of 1850. But the religion that is divorced from science today will leave no offspring tomorrow. From here onward, no religion can reproduce itself in succeeding generations unless it has faced the operations of nature and the claims about human nature with which science confronts us. The problem is somewhat like the one that confronts a living biological species fitting itself into its niche in the changing environment: There must be a good fit for survival, and yet overspecialization is an almost certain route to extinction. Religion that has too thoroughly accommodated to any science will soon be obsolete. It needs to keep its autonomous integrity and resilience. Yet religion cannot live without fitting into the intellectual world that is its environment. Here too the fittest survive. A felicitous skill for getting good [i.e., functional] conclusions from premises that are partly faulty [and here] is a sign of genius both in science and in religion, and I covet that skill.
Some of my data, observations, and conceptions will prove incorrect and distorted. Given the flux in both science and theology, this work will soon prove dated. It was not the scientists first but certain reforming theologians who resolved to put every account under a formula of “revisability” (semper reformanda!). Yet scientists and theologians alike try to give as systematic an account as is possible, given the state of the art and their own capacities [book vs. mimetic stuff, systematized theology, polemicism, issues of "Dogma in Judaism"]. I believe that my conclusions will stand in overview, even though the supporting details may shift. There is ample logical and experiential room for religious belief after science. Indeed, science makes religious judgments more urgent than ever. Never in the histories of science and religion have the opportunities been greater for fertile interaction between these fields, with mutual benefits to both."

Much tremendous warning and 'chizzuk', for all sides. A Judaism 'wed' to the analysis of "Slifkinism" is no less at risk than Jewish anti-evolutionists quoting long-outdated sources. There's lots more but for now I would also mention, in the context of his discussion of species and evironments, that science as a method came about only in the Biblical religious environment. Sure, little bits of species/technologies lived briefly in other contexts, and were so specialized to certain class/individual-niches indeed existed elsewhere (printing in China entrenched the regime and 'specialized/Mystified' written knowledge; Gutenberg overturned the western world; computers have in some ways overturned that world and made others, and in others returned it..lets just say kept it spinning), but nothing like scientific way of thinking that came out in the Christian/Biblical West (links later b'n).

Newly-Published Rav Kook; Religion
From here (my emphasis);
The fact that God is perceived only through religion has caused the world to fall into the lowest depths. God should be known from all of life, from all of existence [specifically not, seemingly, only as a result of having applied religion, i.e., mitzvot, to life to "kasher" it], and thus He will be known in all of life and in all of existence. Religion is a means to aid one in attune one's actions, traits, emotions, external and internal social order, in a manner that will enable life and existence to attain the knowledge of God. God is revealed from within religion only to the extent to which religion itself is hewn from that which is above religion. "Religion" is the proper name used by every nation and tongue, but not so among Israel. The "living Torah" is not religion alone; our living Torah is Divine revelation, which is revealed from within it as from within all of existence. The Torah and existence, in being one, reveal God in life, within the individual and the collective soul. The holy and the profane are divided from the perspective of religion. Religion places guards over matters of sanctity, while leaving profane matters alone. This is necessarily a concept that comes from religion. [But in the living Torah,] God is revealed from within everything, from within the holy and from within the profane.
(Kevatzim Mi-Ketav Yad Kodsho, vol. 2, pinkas ha-dapim 1, p. 59, par. 20)

Thomas Merton [remixed]

Obvious exchange of 'Jews/Jewish' for "xtian", Torah for lhvdl "Gospel"...mixed emphasis his and mine;

"The greatest temptation that assails Jews is that in effect, for most of us, the Torah has ceased to be news. And if it is not news it is not Torah; for the Torah is the proclamation of something absolutely new, everlastingly new, not a message that was once new but is now two [read four...] thousand years old. And yet for many of us the Torah is precisely the announcement of something that is not new: the truths of the Torah are old, deeply-rooted, firmly established, unchanging and in some sense a refuge against all that is disturbing because it is new. . . The message of the Torah when it was first preached was profoundly disturbing to those who wanted to cling to well-established religious patterns, the ancient and accepted ways, the ways that were not dangerous and which contained no surprises.

Repentence is at the same time a complete renewal, a discovery, a new life, and a return to the old, to that which is before everything else that is old. But the old and the new meet in the metanoia, the inner change, that is accomplished by the hearing of God's world and the keeping of it. That which is oldest is newest because it is the beginning [reminds me of Chesterton's counsel that "Obviously, it ought to be the oldest things that are taught to the youngest people]...The new is within the old because it is the perennial beginning of everything, and emerges from the old, transcending it...eternally renewing it's own life. The Torah is handed down from generation to generation but it must reach each one of us brand new, or not at all. If it is merely 'tradition' and not news, it has not been preached or not heard - it is not Torah.

Any word that comes from God is News!

But our ideas of news, the newspapers' idea of news, might lead us to believe that any world except what came from God was news. As if what was said by God had to be so fixed, so determined, so rigid in its set form that it could never be anything new, never unpredictable, never astonishing, never frightening. If there is no risk in revelation, if there is no fear in it, if there is no challenge in it, if it is not a world whicch creates whole worlds, and new beings, if it does not call into existence a new creature, our new self, then religion is dead and God is dead. Those for whom the Torah is old, and old only, have killed it for the rest of men. The life of the Torah is its newness.

Those who preach the Torah as if it were not and could not be news, as if it never could be news again, are saying in their own way, and much more terribly than Nietzsche, that 'God is dead'. They are declaring it officially, they are proclaiming it not just as the paradox of an eccentric, but as the doctrine of their church.

What makes the Torah news? [;]The faith, which is created in us by God and with which we hear it as news. This acceptance of faith, this new birth in the Spirit, opens up a new dimension in which time and eternity meet, in which all things are made new; eternity, time, our own self, the world around us.

But also the news of the Torah is more than a personal subjective discovery, my own individual realisation here and now of a universal message. It is true that what is known to all who have believed becomes known to me also [in Talmud Torah, engaging in dialogue with 'believers' of profound depth of belief and knowledge, etc], in praise [creativity?], in wonder [engagement in the world, the sciences, etc], in the creative light and peace of interior prayer. And my discovery must in some sense enrich the light and the joy of all. But more than that: the Torah looks to a future event that is still not fulfilled...Yet this brings with it another temptation: the false news of those who have too much of a message, too clear a message - 'lo, here is Moshiach [THE derech, etc], precisely here. And we are the ones who have found Him for you'. They have the date and the hour of His coming and they are themselves the main part of the news. A very important part, indeed. The ["second"] coming is their news.

Such news is not to be believed. The Torah itself is much simpler. [Back to Teshuvah...] Now is the judgement of the world, and the newest of all the news, because it is the simple and inscrutable heart of every now, the life and the heartbeat of every history of every man and every race and every nation.

The Torah is the news that, if I will, I can respond now in perfect freedom to the redemptive love of God for man... that I can now rise above the forces of necessity and evil in order to say 'yes' to the mysterious action of Spirit that is transforming the world even in the midst of the violence and confusion and destruction that seem to proclaim His absence and His 'death.'

Let us not underestimate our era, the era of disaster and fulfillment, by calling it 'interesting.'"
Confessions of A Guilty Bystander, p. 126-8

Why we have Bereshit; "There is no personal solution"
If we want a sustainable world, we have to be willing to examine the power relations behind the foundational myth of our culture. Anything less and we will fail.
Questioning at that level is difficult for most people. In this case, the emotional struggle inherent in resisting any hegemony is compounded by our dependence on civilization, and on our individual helplessness to stop it. Most of us would have no chance of survival if the industrial infrastructure collapsed tomorrow. And our consciousness is equally impeded by our powerlessness. There is no Ten Simple Things list in the last chapter because, frankly, there aren’t ten simple things that will save the earth. There is no personal solution. There is an interlocking web of hierarchical arrangements, vast systems of power that have to be confronted and dismantled. Lierre Keith

I can almost hear the Canfei Nisharim people now; "But Avraham Avinu was just one 'person', and every little bit counts and everyone can do their part and it will all just mount into this wonderful fulfillment of every diverging and...uh...conflicting agenda, dream and illusion we have!". And just one little drop of cynicism forestalls the arrival of Moshiach!" It's just this sort of "Golly Gee Willikers" Judaism that drives me from identifying with the LWMO settings - where a significant percentage of "prominent", idealized "devoted" members of the communities doubt that Avraham Avinu even existed...who doubt the kashrut of Torah as the yardstick by which their lives, livelyhoods and pasttimes are to be measured.

Even they fall prey to the typically-Charedi "anything for chinnuch, anything for kiruv", where all manner of delusions and wishful thinking and half-baked revisionism can be put forth to bolster unrelenting, unimpeded, un-reflective optimism to keep true believers and gain new ones in the face of complexity (at times verging on a Jewish YCYOR, of sorts). Do Jews honestly so believe that virtually every facet, every power structure, every social and industrial system can be kashered or rendered muter (Where there's a rabbinic will, there's a halachic way"...)? That industrialized Western Civilization - over all others, in actually or potentiality - has some haskamah from On High, that this state of affairs is fate itself, and that the only way is more and faster management of the world?

Read with deep, fundamental questioning in mind, I think Avraham Avinu would have been more in agreement with the mode of thought of this quote than in the outcry against it. A little chinnuch and counseling here-and-there was not how he related to the excesses of civilization of his day. "Civilized" isn't an inherently kosher notion. He left a deeply complex, deeply imbedded, corrupt and destructive 'high society', considered the height of the ancient world (ditto for Israel in Mitzraim....)! Does that even have to be mentioned?! What did he do next; move to a new city where it would be safe to raise kids and find nice, eidle work? He became a sheepherder. Who founded cities anyways, as far as Torah is concerned?...Caine. Throughout Tanach is, I believe, the refrain that "stages" of cultural evolution are human projections, that the kashrut of a society is determined by how well it optimizes actual Jewish modes of life (which is not be definition, always convenient), and that certain ranges and depths of human civilization can be koshered - and certain are to be avoided at all costs. And the differences between them are not always obvious.

Throughout Tanach we have people who were "frum" in various societies - The Avot and their struggles are not there as a reminder of "humble origins" in a "rags to riches" climb to the top of industry, progress, leisure and empire - Bereshit is there to remind us of timeless mandates of fundamental ethics - do good, be good and ethically sound, etc, etc, etc in the way of The Avot...we're counseled to follow the ethics (the central lifeways), of the city-leaving, nomadic, sheep-herding Forefathers...All of which is to some degree possible in virtually any situation we find ourselves, from rural Saskatchwan to H"V a deathcamp to nebach, Deal, NJ. But obviously some are more preferable to others. Where Jews revere Shlomo haMelekh in much popular Jewish literature for the vastness of his empire, his connections, etc, etc...the very same Jew's Tanach criticizes these very achievements (accumulating horses, i.e. chariots, a standing army of conscripts, marrying for political allegiances to expand the empire, etc). I think the current setting of the post-industrial West is reaching the "get the hell out of Dodge" stage, by the sweat of our own brow.

Observance or Affiliation?

I will be editing this of the next week I"H, so I don't have to write anything new...
To the degree ones does mitzvot as mitzvot - do they count (p.257), or not? On these things, it would seem no one can judge anyones 'praxy' (let alone me, as this is increasingly how I look at my own lifeways), when one has done [what is defined by the Halacha as] the mitzvah.

But who defines these very parameters, and when? Only the most recent authorities? May averot annul mitzvot? If it is that affiliation is more significant in determining the 'standing' of an individual, how is the performance of a mitzvah 'controlled' by the Conservative/Reform/Unaffiliated/Chabad setting in which it occurs? Many recent Charedim poskim have ruled very strongly against these movements and affiliation with them, even using language in the setting of a ruling, such that using the name of a movement classifies that person.
Is observance and/or transgression possible in ignorance and/or knowledge of the sin as Forbidden and the mitzvah as Commanded? It seems some say yes, some say no - but the consequences are not merely of this world; determination is made about who is a 'heretic' and what is heresy - people are legislated to Heaven, Hell or annihilation in accord with something that seems so fluid in its parameters?...if the punishment or reward is so bound to legal decision 'here' and 'now', are even those categories of existence only "real" in legislative history?! This can't be. The mutually-exclusive approaches in Torah Judaism, the paremeters each establish are so divergent, and the condemnation vented on many of them so extreme, there are too many "legislative histories" of so much legislation that are applied to the life and afterlife of Jews, eternal souls rising to Shamayim and plummeting to Gehinnom and experiencing annihilation at the decision of each succeeding posek or proclaimed Gadol.

Within all this, I don't think intention exhausts the efficacy of mitzvot - I recall something R. Soloveitchik said about a mitzvah being acceptable even in the absence of 'kavannah' - but what of 'in leu' of it being a mitzvah? If one does ethical deeds as ethical deeds and not Commanded Mitzvot, do they count?

Sephardim are "known" for being Traditional but not fully-observant. Commonly it's said that "if they're going to do something they're going to do it 'right'". By them, it would seem a general non-tainting of what a mitzvah is, what revelation is, etc (not abstracted them in accord with a random passing zeitgeist), granted that this strengthens 'necessary beliefs', etc. Conservative jews vs. Conservative judaism, the failure of institutionalized 'pluralism' in encouraging/maintaining the presence among conservative jews of the historically normative views and practices - the increasing intolerance in Conservative Judaism of their own stated, defining doctrine of pluralism. The historical arguments over even having a poskening body like the CJLS, the circumstances that created it's 'necessity' .

The natural, organic wisdom of Sephardic 'pluralism' - where there is not attempt to sanction every non-normative behavior or non-engagement with Jewish Law, the resulting proliferation of natural religiousness among Sephardim - rare among Ashkenazim. Their general communal "orthodoxy", etc, the establishment of legislated normativity, where pluralism naturally occurs. Kadushin's "normal mysticism", it's Conservative setting in modernist approach to 'command' - and even this kind of mysticism distasteful to Torah "rationalists".

Now, About Modern Orthodoxy II


[somewhat old, rather negative; hope to offer something positive soon, without too much 'trauma']
Many take it as inherently impressive that Torah lifeways (Shabbat, learning, etc), can have appeal to lots of doctors/lawyers, the usual 'symbols' of affluence and success. Aish for example even sells it's Chavruta program on just this presumed appeal. Yet we know that profession and education is no barrier to someone making decisions not based in critical thinking, or being any less prone to such choices based on emotion and psychological need. How many "professionals" have been wrapped up in New Age religions, religious cults and self-help pyramid schemes? But;

1) Modern Orthodoxy really makes an icon of the Yuppie Professional. I think it's proof that MO has dispensed with any pretense that its constituency should follow through with one of its stated principles - the engagement of the wide parameters of human knowledge and experience within a kosher framework; the principle is no longer Modern - no longer current, it would be proper to say. How many people are actually inclining their children towards profitable *trades* over 'traditional' professions (dr,esq,cpa/financial professional)? Or even less-profitable college pursuits valued by previous generations of MO "forebearers"(Assyriology or Philosophy anyone?...)? In a related vein, it's the fringes of MO where there are MO people in the arts, music, etc - and I mean in the arts as such - not as individual hobbyists.
It is lip service that MO is all about pursuits that are a 'full engagement' of everything meaningful, redeemable, rewardable or even profitable within a Torah framework. It's not about sanctifying HKBH's world - it's about Torah u'Parnasa, Beltway Yuppiedom or Upper West Side Metropraxy -but having made that stab at '-praxy'; to the degree ones does mitzvot as mitzvot - they count, do they not? On this no one can judge anyones 'praxy' (let alone me, as this is increasingly how I look at my own lifeways). I don't think intention exhausts the efficacy of mitzvot though - though I don't know that this is also a universally kosher view.

I think American Modern Orthodoxy, ideologically speaking, is incapable of sustaining itself;

2)It produces far too few teachers because it's institutions will not pay them enough, and it's culture will not glorify enough the value/place/importance of teachers - those who teach TORAH, or the place of lifestyle sacrifice...so it's left to charedim who teach charedi judaism by silence on MO matters - and are willing to sacrifice where MO's will not - to reach Jewish neshamot (with brave and praiseworthy exceptions - but too few in number). It cannot sustain itself outside of the Upper-Middle Class - and MO is all about maintaining Upper Middle class-'consciousness'.

3)MO don't have the necessary numbers of children or the retention rate to it's ideology; it needs the 'converts' from the non-orthodox movements or unaffiliated - in some ways not unlike the Shakers, who were also rather homogeneous and didn't 'reproduce' enough next-gens.

4) "Bio-diversity"; diversity is as rare in MO circles as among the Charedim (in the professions particularly, as noted above) - pointing out a few exceptions only proves it exactly. And I'm not 'celebrating' "diversity" l'shma - what is lacking is diversity necessary for a species to survive; biodiversity. There are ways 3 and 4 can apply to Charedim as well; to do kiruv to educated, worldly-in-knowledge, experienced people, they need formerly-worldy, experienced people because Charedi judaism cannot produce a sufficient diversity of perspectives on its own; it may tolerate them, encourage certain of them - but not it cannot emerge them. I'm no longer impressed by BT chassidic/charedi scientists (read "physicists"- a rant warranting its own post). I've heard them describe a real and thick loneliness in their adopted weltanschauung that they don't describe regarding scientific peers. In the arts, its the 'fringes', in the home as hobbyists where artists exist among the charedim and modern; again, examples prove the exceptional nature of their presence (and often, they are on the fringes of the given groups; BTs themselves, 'by affiliation' members, or on the fringes they should be on...I love these people).
Neither can produce enough "bio-diversity" in its intellectual gene pool; it is a handicap to the Charedim - but crippling to the MO who ideologically make claim to the modern conviction of diversity (Charedi homogeneity ensures more integrity regarding their ideological paremeters). This is across the spectrum of human endeavors.

4) MO cannot produce the biodiversity necessary for survival as both Modern and Orthodox - where it is 'strongest', it is on temporal life support, in a 'zoo' setting, a cloistered setting not so different from the way those in Charedi strongholds live their lives; but Charedim don't claim to engage the modern world! Can it honestly weather, as a movement, the "wild", real world, which is to say HKBH's world He Made...to live Torah in? Have we so rendered HKBH's Yahadut and HKBH's world in such relationships that they are irreconciliable without 'genetically engineering' each, such that they are non-vioable?
How many of MO's intellectuals and thinkers (not doctors or lawyers, not CPAs or Social Workers), could sustain themselves outside the cloisters of the Bar-Ilan's and [certain departments of] Hebrew U's and YUs?...and again, many of the same arguments could indict Charedi judaism as well. We're muffed, and the only things that sustain us are money and the profound Mercy of HKBH for this ship of fools adrift at sea, each of us drilling holes under our own seats.