[1]KOHELET

SANCTIFYING THE HUMAN PERSPECTIVE[2]

INTRODUCTION

Tanakh is intended to shape and guide our lives. Therefore, seeking out peshat—the primary intent of the authors of Tanakh—is a religious imperative and must be handled with great care and responsibility.

Our Sages recognized a hazard inherent to learning. In attempting to understand the text, nobody can be truly detached and objective. Consequently, people’s personal agendas cloud their ability to view the text in an unbiased fashion. An example of such a viewpoint is the verse, “let us make man” from the creation narrative, which uses the plural “us” instead of the singular “me” (Gen. 1:26):

R. Samuel b. Nahman said in R. Jonatan’s name: When Moses was engaged in writing the Torah, he had to write the work of each day. When he came to the verse, “And God said: Let Us make man,” etc., he said: “Sovereign of the Universe! Why do You furnish an excuse to heretics (for maintaining a plurality of gods)?” “Write,” replied He; “And whoever wishes to err will err.” (Gen. Rabbah 8:8)

The midrash notes that there were those who were able to derive support for their theology of multiple deities from the this verse, the antithesis of a basic Torah value. God would not compromise truth because some people are misguided. It also teaches that if they wish, people will be able to find pretty much anything as support for their agendas under the guise of scholarship. Whoever wishes to err will err.

            However, a second hazard exists, even for those sincerely seeking the word of God:

It is related of King Ptolemy that he brought together seventy-two elders and placed them in seventy-two [separate] rooms, without telling them why he had brought them together, and he went in to each one of them and said to him, Translate for me the Torah of Moses your master. God then prompted each one of them and they all conceived the same idea and wrote for him, God created in the beginning, I shall make man in image and likeness. (Megillah 9a)

This narrative reflects the concern that by popularizing the Torah through translation, less learned people may inadvertently derive the wrong meaning from the “plural” form of “Let Us make man.” For this anticipated audience, God inspired the elders to deviate from the truth and translate with the singular form so that unwitting people would not err.

While this educational discussion is central to all Tanakh, Ecclesiastes probably concerned our Sages and later commentators more than any other biblical book. By virtue of its inclusion in Tanakh, Ecclesiastes’ teaching becomes truth in our tradition. Regarding any book of Tanakh, if there are those who wish to err in the conclusions they draw, they will do so. However, our Sages worried that Ecclesiastes might cause even the most sincerely religious people to draw conclusions antithetical to the Torah, thereby causing greater religious harm than good. and consequently they considered censoring it from Tanakh:

R. Judah son of R. Samuel b. Shilat said in Rav’s name: The Sages wished to hide the Book of Ecclesiastes, because its words are self-contradictory; yet why did they not hide it? Because its beginning is religious teaching and its end is religious teaching. (Shabbat 30b)

Our Sages discerned internal contradictions in Ecclesiastes, but they also worried that Ecclesiastes contained external contradictions, that is, verses that appear to contradict the values of the Torah. They addressed this alarming prospect by concluding that since Ecclesiastes begins and ends with religiously appropriate teachings, those verses set the tone for the remainder of its contents. If one reaches anti-Torah conclusions from Ecclesiastes, it means that something was read out of context. A striking illustration of this principle is a midrashic teaching on Ecclesiastes 11:9. The verse reads:

O youth, enjoy yourself while you are young! Let your heart lead you to enjoyment in the days of your youth. Follow the desires of your heart and the glances of your eyes—but know well that God will call you to account for all such things.

To which our Sages respond:

R. Benjamin b. Levi stated: The Sages wanted to hide the Book of Ecclesiastes, for they found in it ideas that leaned toward heresy. They argued: Was it right that Solomon should have said the following: O youth, enjoy yourself while you are young! Let your heart lead you to enjoyment in the days of your youth (Ecc. 11:9)? Moshe said, So that you do not follow your heart and eyes (Num. 15:39), but Solomon said, Follow the desires of your heart and the glances of your eyes (Ecc. 11:9)! What then? Is all restraint to be removed? Is there neither justice nor judge? When, however, he said, But know well that God will call you to account for all such things (Ecc. 11:9), they admitted that Solomon had spoken well. (Lev. Rabbah 28:1; cf. Ecc. Rabbah 1:3)

Were our Sages genuinely worried about people not reading the second half of a verse and consequently adopting a hedonistic lifestyle? Based on the midrashic method of reading verses out of their natural context, this verse likely posed a more serious threat in their society than it would for a pashtan who reads verses in context. The best defense against such egregious errors always is good peshat. This chapter will briefly consider the challenges of learning peshat in Ecclesiastes, and then outline a means of approaching Ecclesiastes as the unique book it is.

METHODOLOGICAL CONSIDERATIONS

            At the level of derash, many of our Sages’ comments on Ecclesiastes appear to be speaking about an entirely different book, one that is about Torah. The word “Torah” never appears in Ecclesiastes. Such midrashim appear to be radically reinterpreting Ecclesiastes to make it consistent with the rest of Tanakh. Similarly, many later commentators, including those generally committed to peshat, sometimes follow this midrashic lead of radical reinterpretation of the verses they find troubling.

            This approach is rooted in the dual responsibility of our commentators. As scholars, they attempt to ascertain the original intent of the biblical text. However, they also are students and teachers of Jewish tradition. Their educational sensitivities often enter the interpretive arena, particularly when the surface reading of Ecclesiastes appears to threaten traditional values.[3]

            For example, Kohelet opens by challenging the enduring value of the two leading manifestations of human success: wealth and wisdom. That Kohelet focuses on the ephemerality of wealth and physical enjoyment is not surprising, but his focus on the limitations and vulnerability of wisdom is stunning:

For as wisdom grows, vexation grows; to increase learning is to increase heartache. (1:18)

Sforno is so uncomfortable with this indictment of wisdom that he reinterprets the verse as referring to the ostensible wisdom of heretics. I often wonder if the parshan himself believes that a suggestion of this nature is peshat, that is, does he assume that Kohelet cannot possibly intend what he appears to be saying; or is he reinterpreting primarily to deflect such teachings from a less learned readership, as did the authors of the Septuagint in the Talmudic passage cited above.[4]

Some commentators attempt to resolve certain internal and external contradictions in Ecclesiastes by attributing otherwise troubling (to these commentators) statements to other people—generally evil people or fools. Take, for example, one of Kohelet’s most life-affirming declarations:

Go, eat your bread in gladness, and drink your wine in joy; for your action was long ago approved by God. Let your clothes always be freshly washed, and your head never lack ointment. Enjoy happiness with a woman you love all the fleeting days of life that have been granted to you under the sun—all your fleeting days. For that alone is what you can get out of life and out of the means you acquire under the sun. (9:7-9)

Ibn Ezra—the quintessential pashtan—writes, “This is the folly that people say in their hearts.” Ibn Ezra maintains that Kohelet’s own view is the opposite of what this passage says.[5] However, such attempts to escape difficult verses appear arbitrary. Nothing in the text signals a change in speaker (particularly if Kohelet wishes to reject that speaker’s views), leaving decisions of attribution entirely in the hands of the commentator.[6]

            Commentators also devote much energy to reconciling the internal contradictions of Ecclesiastes. See, for example, the lengthy discussions of Ibn Ezra (on 7:3) and Mordechai Zer-Kavod (introduction in Da’at Mikra, pp. 24-33). Some reconciliations are more textually convincing than others. Regardless, it is critical to ask why there are so many contradictions in the first place.[7] That so many strategies were employed to bring Ecclesiastes in line with the rest of Tanakh and with itself amply demonstrates that this Megillah is unusual. Ecclesiastes needs to be understood on its own terms rather than being reinterpreted away. Pashtanim also developed a methodology for confronting Ecclesiastes’ challenges directly, as will be discussed presently.[8]

ATTEMPTING A PESHAT READING: GUIDELINES

            In order to approach Ecclesiastes, we must consider a few of its verifiable features. Ecclesiastes is written about life and religious meaning in this world. The expression tahat ha-shemesh (beneath the sun) appears twenty-nine times in Ecclesiastes, and nowhere else in the rest of Tanakh. Tahat ha‑shamayim (under heaven) appears three additional times, and Rashi and Rashbam[9] maintain that this expression is synonymous with tahat ha‑shemesh. In the same vein, people are called ro’ei ha-shemesh (those who behold the sun) in 7:11. The word ani (I) appears twenty-nine times, and its appearance is not grammatically necessary. The emphasis on tahat ha-shemesh demonstrates a this-worldly perspective, while the repetition of the word ani highlights the personal nature of the presentation. Michael V. Fox notes the difference between how 1:12-14 is written:

I, Kohelet, was king in Jerusalem over Israel. I set my mind to study and to probe with wisdom all that happens under the sun.—An unhappy business that, which God gave men to be concerned with! I observed all the happenings beneath the sun, and I found that all is futile and pursuit of wind.

Fox then imagines how these verses could have been written without the focus on the personal narrative:

Studying and probing with wisdom all that happens under the sun is an unhappy business, which God gave men to be concerned with! All the happenings beneath the sun are futile and pursuit of wind.

Without the personal reflections that are central to Kohelet’s thought, we are left with a series of dogmatic pronouncements. Kohelet’s presentation invites readers into his mind as he goes through a personal struggle and process of reflection.[10]

            Given this starkly anthropocentric perspective, Ecclesiastes should reflect different perspectives than the theocentric viewpoint of revealed prophecy. All people perceive the same reality that Kohelet does. On the basis of this observation, R. Simeon ben Manasia maintained that Ecclesiastes was not inspired altogether:

R. Simeon ben Manasia says: The Song of Songs defiles the hands because it was composed with divine inspiration. Ecclesiastes does not defile the hands because it is only Solomon’s wisdom. (Tosefta Yadayim 2:14)[11]

Though his minority view was rejected by our tradition (which insists that Ecclesiastes is divinely inspired), Ecclesiastes is written from the perspective of human wisdom.

            The word adam appears forty-nine times in Ecclesiastes, referring to all humanity (except for one instance in 7:28, which refers specifically to males). Kohelet speaks in a universal language and does not limit its discourse to a Jewish audience. Torah and other specifically Jewish themes do not appear in Ecclesiastes, which focuses on more universal hokhmah (wisdom) and yirat Elokim (fear of God).

            Similarly, God’s personal name—the Tetragrammaton—never appears in Ecclesiastes. Only the generic name Elokim appears (forty times), signifying both the universalistic discourse of Ecclesiastes and also a distant, transcendant Deity, rather than a close and personal relationship with God. In Ecclesiastes, God appears remote, and it is impossible to fathom His means of governing the world. For example, Kohelet warns:

Keep your mouth from being rash, and let not your throat be quick to bring forth speech before God. For God is in heaven and you are on earth; that is why your words should be few. (5:1)

Since God is so infinitely superior, there is no purpose and much harm in protesting against God (cf. 3:11; 7:13-14). Moreover, Kohelet never speaks directly to God; he speaks about God and the human condition in a sustained monologue to his audience.

            Tying together these strands of evidence, Rabbi Naftali Tzvi Yehudah Berlin (Netziv) attempts to explain why Ecclesiastes is read (primarily by Ashkenazim[12]) on Sukkot:

It is written in Zechariah chapter 14 that in the future the nations of the world will come [to Jerusalem] on Hol HaMo’ed Sukkot to bring offerings…. And this was the custom in King Solomon’s time. This is why Solomon recited Ecclesiastes on Hol HaMo’ed Sukkot in the presence of the wise of the nations…. This is why it contains only the name Elokim, since [non-Jews] know only that Name of God. (Harhev Davar on Num. 29:12)

Needless to say, this means of justifying a custom is anachronistic from a historical vantage point. Nonetheless, Netziv’s keen perception of Kohelet’s addressing all humanity with universal religious wisdom captures the unique flavor of this book.

            From a human perspective, life is filled with contradictions. Ecclesiastes’ textual contradictions reflect aspects of the multifaceted and often paradoxical human condition. Significantly, Ecclesiastes’ inclusion in Tanakh and its consideration as a divinely inspired book elevates human perception into the realm of the sacred, joining revelation and received wisdom as aspects of religious truth.

            While Ecclesiastes contains truth, it is but one aspect of truth rather than the whole truth. For example, Kohelet considers oppression an unchangeable reality:

I further observed all the oppression that goes on under the sun: the tears of the oppressed, with none to comfort them; and the power of their oppressors—with none to comfort them. Then I accounted those who died long since more fortunate than those who are still living; and happier than either are those who have not yet come into being and have never witnessed the miseries that go on under the sun. (4:1-3)

Kohelet never calls on God to stop this oppression, nor does he exhort society to stop it. He simply laments that human history repeats itself in an endless cycle of oppression. Kohelet sets this tone in 1:4-7 by analogizing human existence to the cyclical patterns in nature (Ibn Ezra).

            In contrast, prophecy is committed to changing society so that it ultimately matches the ideal messianic vision. While a human perspective sees only repetitions of errors in history, prophecy reminds us that current reality need not mimic past history.

            Kohelet grapples with the realities that wise/righteous people do not necessarily live longer or more comfortable lives than the foolish/wicked and that wisdom itself is limited and fallible:

Here is a frustration that occurs in the world: sometimes an upright man is requited according to the conduct of the scoundrel; and sometimes the scoundrel is requited according to the conduct of the upright. I say all that is frustration…. For I have set my mind to learn wisdom and to observe the business that goes on in the world—even to the extent of going without sleep day and night—and I have observed all that God brings to pass. Indeed, man cannot guess the events that occur under the sun. For man tries strenuously, but fails to guess them; and even if a sage should think to discover them he would not be able to guess them. (8:14-17)

Kohelet maintains both sides of the classical conflict: God is just, but there are injustices manifested in the real world. While Kohelet cannot solve this dilemma, he discovers a productive response. Once a person can accept that the world appears unfair, one can realize that everything is a gift from God rather than a necessary consequence for righteousness.[13] We ultimately cannot fathom how God governs this world, but we can fulfill our religious obligations and grow from all experiences. Wisdom always is preferred to folly,[14] even though wisdom is limited and the wise cannot guarantee themselves a more comfortable life than fools, and everyone dies regardless.[15]

On a deeper level, the human psyche is profoundly attracted to being godlike. This tendency lies at the heart of the sins of Eve (Gen. 3:5, 22) and the builders of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9).[16] Kohelet blames God for creating us with this desire while limiting us, rendering this innate drive impossible (7:14; cf. Rashbam, Ibn Ezra on 1:13). Confrontation with our own limitations leads to the extreme frustration manifest in Ecclesiastes. However, once we can accept that we cannot be God, this realization should lead to humility and awe of God:

He brings everything to pass precisely at its time; He also puts eternity in their mind, but without man ever guessing, from first to last, all the things that God brings to pass. Thus I realized that the only worthwhile thing there is for them is to enjoy themselves and do what is good in their lifetime; also, that whenever a man does eat and drink and get enjoyment out of all his wealth, it is a gift of God. I realized, too, that whatever God has brought to pass will recur evermore: Nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it—and God has brought to pass that men revere Him. (Ecc. 3:11-14)[17]

Michael V. Fox summarizes Ecclesiastes’ purpose as follows:

When the belief in a grand causal order collapses, human reason and self-confidence fail with it. This failure is what God intends, for after it comes fear, and fear is what God desires (3:14). And that is not the end of the matter, for God allows us to build small meanings from the shards of reason.[18]

While Kohelet challenges us at every turn, he simultaneously provides us the opportunity to find meaning beneath the unsolvable dilemmas.

Similarly, the universality of death tortures Kohelet. Once Kohelet accepts the reality of death, however, he concludes that it is preferable to attend funerals rather than parties, since focusing on our mortality will encourage us to live a more meaningful life:

It is better to go to a house of mourning than to a house of feasting; for that is the end of every man, and a living one should take it to heart. (7:2, cf. Rashbam)

Rabbi Joseph B. Soloveitchik expands on this idea, and says that it is not that there can only be meaning in life if there is death:

The finite experience of being arouses man’s conscience, challenges him to accomplish as much as possible during his short life span. In a word, finiteness is the source of morality…. For orgiastic man, time is reduced to one dimension; only the present moment counts. There is no future to be anticipated, no past to be remembered.[19]

Certain paradoxes and limitations are inherent to human existence, and not even the wisest of all men can make them disappear. Instead, Kohelet teaches us how to confront these challenges honestly and then embark on a process of intense existential frustration that ultimately leads to a greater recognition of the infinite gap between ourselves and God, leading in turn to humility and fear of God, leading in turn to living more religiously in every sense.[20]

CONCLUSION

A further word: Because Kohelet was a sage, he continued to instruct the people. He listened and tested the soundness (izzen ve-hikker) of many maxims. (12:9)

Kohelet relentlessly challenges received wisdom rather than blindly accepting it. This process is accompanied by formidable dangers and responsibilities; but ignoring that pursuit comes with even greater dangers. Kohelet never abandons his beliefs nor his normative sense of what all God-fearing people should do; yet he also never abandons nor solves his questions and his struggles with human existence. By presenting this process through a personal account with inspired wisdom, he becomes the teacher of every thinking religious individual.

One midrash suggests that Solomon made the Torah accessible in a manner that nobody had done since the Torah was revealed. He taught those who were not prophets how to develop a relationship with God:

He listened and tested the soundness (izzen ve-hikker) of many maxims (12:9)—he made handles (oznayim) to the Torah…. R. Yosei said: Imagine a big basket full of produce without any handle, so that it could not be lifted, until one clever man came and made handles to it, and then it began to be carried by the handles. So until Solomon arose, no one could properly understand the words of the Torah, but when Solomon arose, all began to comprehend the Torah. (Song of Songs Rabbah 1:8)

Tanakh needed prophecy so that we could transcend ourselves and our limited perspectives to aspire to a more perfected self and world, and to reach out across the infinite gulf to God. Ultimately, however, it also needed Ecclesiastes to teach how to have faith from the human perspective, so that we may grow in our fear of Heaven and observe God’s commandments in truth.

              My recently published book, Jewish Literary Eros: Between Poetry and Prose in the Medieval Mediterranean (Indiana University Press, June 2022), presents a comparison of fictional writings across literary traditions of the medieval Mediterranean. It places secular texts by Jewish authors side by side with works by their Muslim and Jewish predecessors and Christian contemporaries to see how attitudes toward fiction, metaphor, pseudo-autobiography, allegory, and courting rituals vary or parallel each other in unexpected ways. The texts in question were written primarily between the twelfth through fourteenth centuries by Jewish authors in Christian Spain and Italy and comprise a mixture of poetry and prose, known as prosimetra. The writing of this period has traditionally been considered decadent, less brilliant and innovative than compositions by Jewish Andalusian predecessors whose writings, still in regular circulation today, have had an incalculable impact on Jewish intellectual, literary, scientific, and exegetical histories. I hope that I dispel this misconception in some small way: the next generations of texts form a continuum, one that both looks to past innovations while also considering new ways to create meaning for readers attempting to survive ever more precarious realities.

Thus, on the one hand, this study has less to do with the Jewishness of these authors than the astonishing literary hybridity of writers from across the medieval Mediterranean—writers from different faiths who spoke the same languages, shared the same secular cultural contexts, and studied the same philosophical commentaries, mathematical treatises, and scientific texts. Indeed, the literary forms and the varieties of love I highlight are far more evocative of social conditions and cultural values than the entertaining qualities of the works seem to indicate.

On the other hand, there is something particularly Jewish about the texts by these Jewish authors, despite their unmistakable borrowings from and adaptations of Arabic and Romance literary forms and motifs. This something is at once both obvious and elusive; obvious, since secular texts written in Hebrew by Jews of al-Andalus, Christian Spain, or Italy are all in essence clever and brilliant pastiches of the Hebrew Bible, every word or phrase necessarily carrying with it a complex array of connotations that educated Jewish readers of the medieval Mediterranean would have noticed immediately and admired greatly. (There were a few detractors to secular poetry, of course, most famously Maimonides and his disciple ibn Falaquera, though Maimonides objected not to poetry itself but rather to its desecration of the Holy Tongue and its potential to lead men to engage in unseemly behavior.[1]) This something Jewish, though, is as elusive as it is obvious, since these authors broke new ground, experimenting with new literary forms and techniques: the resulting texts grapple with human love and poetics as intertwined and crucial steps toward ethical living, and regardless of intercalated biblical allusions the stories are removed from a Jewish context. At the same time, however, these authors openly declare their goal of creating texts that show the potency of the Hebrew language with the expressed hope of buoying their Jewish readers who were living in ever more precarious circumstances, facing persecution, forced conversion, forced migration. I must add that not all of the texts by Jewish authors featured in my book are in Hebrew; they also include works in Italian, Judeo-Spanish, and Castilian in the centuries following. In this way, the question of what makes a text particularly Jewish is even more challenging and amorphous.

To be clear, these authors were pious men who penned biblical commentaries and liturgical poems—Jacob ben Elʿazar the author of liturgical poems and Immanuel of Rome the author of extensive biblical commentary. But they were also secular polymaths, descendants of those who were trained in the Arabic tradition of adab, a word that in modern Arabic simply means literature but in the medieval period referred to a broad, humanistic education that any young man of means would have pursued. Like their Muslim counterparts, wealthy Jewish men in al-Andalus in the golden age of Hebrew letters (ca. 950–1150) studied these same subjects, one of which was poetry, poetic composition, and, what today we would call literary criticism. One of the most profound results of this flourishing humanism was the tenth-century adaptation of Arabic quantitative meter and thematics for use in Hebrew poetry, both secular and devotional; the same poets, such as Judah Halevi and Solomon Ibn Gabirol, composed both varieties.[2]

The later authors whose works are the focus of my book lived in Christian Spain and Italy, in periods of increasing unease and turmoil, their predecessors already having been driven from their beloved Andalucia by increasingly stringent Muslim rulers. Ben Elʿazar and Immanuel, for instance, composed masterpieces in Toledo and Italy (exact location unknown), respectively, amid fraught historical realities: ben Elʿazar had to contend with increasingly stringent papal and monarchical controls on Jewish businesses and religious practice, and while Immanuel’s Christian counterparts deigned to exchange Italian sonnets with him, they made sure to refer to him as “Immanuel the Jew” (a moniker that has remained even today when some modern-day scholars of medieval Italian literature refer to him) and to position him in excrement-laden visions of hell in their own sonnets—forceful reminders that he and his fellow Jews were purportedly expelled from Rome by the Avignon papacy in 1321, though documentation of the edict is not extant.

In the past two decades, scholars have delved into the multiplicity of literary traditions of medieval Iberia, devoting studies to Hebrew and Sephardic literature within the Mediterranean setting, including, among others, wonderful books by Ross Brann (Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism); Jonathan Decter (Iberian Jewish Literature); Michelle Hamilton (Representing Others in Medieval Iberian Literature); S. J. Pearce (Andalusi Literary & Intellectual Tradition); and David Wacks (Framing Iberia and Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature). These studies complement research collections that confront the multiplicities of medieval Iberia from a comparative perspective, such as The Literature of Al-Andalus (edited by María Rosa Menocal, Michael Sells, and Raymond P. Scheindlin); A Sea of Languages: Rethinking the Arabic Role in Medieval Literary History (edited by Suzanne Conklin Akbari and Karla Mallette); and Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile (edited by Cynthia Robinson and Leyla Rouhi).

My contribution is a pause amid these broader studies; in slowing down to look at the intricacies of literary form and genre across traditions, I find particular moments of innovation among Jewish authors. Freeing themselves from the steady restraints of both meter and rhyme built into the fixed poetic forms employed by Hebrew poets of al-Andalus, some Jewish authors of prosimetric or polymetric texts explored new literary forms to address secular love. Although my most conspicuous examples come from certain Hebrew maqamas, I also consider other works, including Immanuel’s Italian lyrics and polymetric Judeo-Spanish oral poems, and I broaden my discussion into experimental poetic and prose compositions from the fifteenth through seventeenth centuries. I situate these examples with respect to relevant sources in ancient Greek, classical Arabic, Latin, Castilian, French, Galician-Portuguese, Italian, and Occitan. When viewed in the comparative context of the medieval Mediterranean, the evolving relationship between the authors’ combinations of literary forms and the theme of love adds nuance to our understanding of how Jewish literature of the period negotiates its position within Islamicate and Christian literary traditions.

The question remains: why love? Profane love is the only theme shared across prosimetra by authors of the three religions. While all Arabic treatises, no matter the subject matter, featured interspersed rhymed and metered poems, Romance-language texts—which evolved much later than classical Arabic works, mirroring the centuries’ later development of distinct Romance languages—favored poetry and most often featured love stories; of the few extant Romance prosimetra, love is the choice topic. Yes, this is the realm of courtly love—a highly problematic term that I address thoroughly—a world of knights, princesses, and unrequited love; indeed, a world in which some Jewish authors were eager to take part. At the crossroads of these literary cultures, Jews of the medieval Mediterranean pushed poetry toward something new, combining dominant cultures’ literary stylings, at times imbued with biblical Hebrew and Jewish thematics, and with an undeniably perceptive awareness of self and other.

Works Cited

Brann, Ross. Iberian Moorings: Al-Andalus, Sefarad, and the Tropes of Exceptionalism. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2021.

Hamilton, Michelle. Representing Others in Medieval Iberian Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

Maimonides, Moses. The Guide of the Perplexed. Translated by Shlomo Pines. Chicago: University of Chicago, 1963.

———. Maimonides’ Treatise on Logic (Maqāla fī sināʿat al-mantiq). Edited and translated by Israel Efros. New York: American Academy for Jewish Research, 1938.

———. Mishna ʿim perush Rabenu Moshe ben Maimon. Edited and translated by Yosef Qaʿfiḥ. Jerusalem: Mosad ha-Rav Quq, 1964.

Menocal, María Rosa, Michael Sells, and Raymond P. Scheindlin. The Literature of Al-Andalus, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000.

Monroe, James T. “Maimonides on the Mozarabic Lyric (A Note on the Muwassaḥa).” La corónica 17, no. 2 (1989): 18–32.

Pearce, S. J. The Andalusi Literary and Intellectual Tradition: The Role of Arabic in Judah Ibn Tibbon’s Ethical Will. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2017.

Robinson, Cynthia, and Leyla Rouhi, eds. Under the Influence: Questioning the Comparative in Medieval Castile. Leiden: Brill, 2005.

Scheindlin, Raymond P. “Hebrew Poetry in Medieval Iberia.” In Convivencia: Jews, Muslims, and Christians in Medieval Spain. Ed. Vivian B. Mann, Thomas F. Glick, and Jerrilynn D. Dodds, 38-59. New York: G. Braziller in association with the Jewish Museum, 1992.

Wacks, David. Double Diaspora in Sephardic Literature: Jewish Cultural Production before and after 1492. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2015.

———. Framing Iberia: Maqāmāt and Frametale Narratives in Medieval Spain. Leiden: Brill, 2007.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Bereishith

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

            The Torah makes a startling statement about God’s creation of Adam/Humankind:“So God created Humankind in His own image [tselem Elo-him], in the image of God He created him; male and female he created them” (Bereishith 1:27). Sages have devoted much thought to this verse. What exactly does the Torah mean by the phrase tselem Elo-him, image of God? We are too sophisticated to take the phrase literally i.e. that human beings are created in the physical form of God—a Being who has no physical features. Among the most widely held views, “image” refers to intellect, free will or creativity.

            I suggest that the phrase refers to the human potential for spirituality. From the very inception of humanity, God instilled within us a desire to transcend ourselves, to aspire to an infinite reality beyond our immediate reach.

            Evolutionary biologist Edward O. Wilson, in his book On Human Nature, presents evidence that a religious sensibility existed in human beings from the earliest times. All human societies-- from hunter gatherers to moderns and post-moderns—display a predilection to spiritual belief. This spiritual sense is intrinsic to humanity.

            Every human being has this capacity, but each of us develops and nurtures it differently. The seed of Godliness within us provides the potential for optimal human spiritual growth . Some are able to rise to great heights…to prophecy itself. Others negate and profane their tselem Elo-him by clinging to false ideologies or immoral behaviors.

            Dean Hamer, in his book The God Gene, argues that our spiritual sense is actually implanted in us genetically. “It is our genetic makeup that helps to determine how spiritual we are. We do not know God; we feel him.” This would fit in well with our notion of tselem Elo-him. We all have an innate spiritual disposition, albeit of different levels, and can choose to develop this disposition or suppress it.

            Religiosity and spirituality are not the same thing. Religions attempt to create frameworks that foster spirituality. Religions provide rites and ceremonials that are intended to stimulate our spiritual sense. But it is possible to observe the various rites and ceremonials and be oblivious to the spirituality these things are meant to inspire. Ideally, our religious lives should be in sync with our spiritual aspirations.

            In 1931, Benjamin Nathan Cardozo gave the commencement address at the Jewish Institute of Religion. He referred to the astronomer Tycho Brahe who devoted long years to mark and register the stars, when people mocked him for this seemingly useless endeavor. Cardozo remarked:  “The submergence of self in the pursuit of an ideal, the readiness to spend oneself without measure, prodigally, almost ecstatically, for something intuitively apprehended as great and noble, spend oneself one knows not why—some of us like to believe that is what religion means.”

            If we add “God” to Justice Cardozo’s statement, we will have a beautiful understanding of spirituality…and religion at its best. Something within us yearns for transcendence, truth, wholeness, unity. When we feel the presence of God, we not only transcend ourselves…we plumb the depths within ourselves.

            The quality of spirituality—the tselem Elo-him within us-- is God’s gift to us; how we use or abuse this gift defines who we are as human beings.

                                                                                                             *     *     *

Rabbi M. Angel has a 5 minute youtube program, "Are Terrorists Created in the Image of God."   Please see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MF8-fwpcte4&t=15s

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Lekh Lekha

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

In Chapter 2 of his “Laws of Foundations of Torah,” Maimonides discusses the commandments to love and fear God. “What is the way to love and fear Him? When one contemplates His wondrous and great works and creations and sees in them His infinite wisdom, immediately he loves and praises and exalts and yearns with an overwhelming yearning to know His great Name….On meditating these very things, one immediately recoils, fears and trembles, realizing that he is a tiny, low and obscure being of small intelligence standing before the One with perfect wisdom…”

Significantly, Maimonides locates love and fear of God in a universal context. Every human being can contemplate the wonders of nature and detect the greatness of the Creator. Maimonides might have written that one learns love and fear of God by studying the Torah…God’s word. But by specifically including this passage in his section on Foundations of Torah, he was teaching us that we are not only Jews with a Torah…but we are human beings who share in the universal human spiritual adventure.

This week’s Torah portion begins with God’s command to Abram to leave his land, his birthplace, the house of his parents. Abram was to go to a land that God would show him and start a new chapter in the history of humanity.

The Torah does not indicate why God chose Abram for this awesome challenge. Rabbinic tradition filled the void with various Midrashic stories that highlight Abram’s spiritual greatness. Although his father Terah was an idolater, Abram repudiated idolatry and shattered his father’s idols. Abram did not inherit faith in One God, but discovered God through philosophical questioning. In viewing the wondrous and great works and creations, he concluded that these things could not have just happened on their own. There must be a Creator who set things in order.

Abram discovered God centuries before the Torah was revealed to the Israelites at Mount Sinai. The Midrashim underscore that God is accessible to us through our universal human capacities.

The opening chapters of the Torah, from the creation story, through Noah and Abram/Abraham, are directed at humanity at large…not just at the Jewish People. The message is: through philosophy and science, human beings can attain love and fear of God.

Jews have an additional route to God: the Torah. Each morning in our prayers, we thank the Almighty for having granted Torah to the People of Israel. The teachings and commandments of Torah put us in contact with God’s word and God’s will…and the more we study and internalize Torah, the more we are able to deepen our connection with God.

Jewish tradition, thus, has two roads to God: the natural world, which reveals God as Creator; and the Torah, which records the words of God to the people of Israel. But the Torah itself leads us back to the first road, the road of experiencing God as Creator. The Torah and nature are bound together.

 The relationship of Torah and nature is evident in Psalm 19. The psalm has two distinct parts which at first glance seem to be unconnected. It begins: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the firmament tells His handiwork. Day unto day utters the tale, night unto night unfolds knowledge. There is no word, no speech, their voice is not heard, yet their course extends through all the world, and their theme to the end of the world.” It goes on to describe the sun which rejoices as a strong man prepared to run his course. “Its setting forth is from one end of the skies, its circuit unto the other extreme, and nothing is hidden from its heat.” Then the psalm makes an abrupt shift. It continues: “The law of the Lord is perfect, comforting the soul…the precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart. The commandment of the Lord is clear, enlightening the eyes.” From a description of the glory of God as manifested in the natural world, the psalm jumps to a praise of the Torah, God’s special revelation to the people of Israel.

 The psalm is teaching that one may come to an understanding of God both through the natural world and through the Torah.

For the Jewish People, Abraham is our father (Avraham Avinu) and Moses is our teacher (Moshe Rabbeinu)…and both lead us to God.

Book Review

Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Deuteronomy (Regnery Faith, 2022)

          This review is a sequel to my reviews of Dennis Prager’s volumes on Genesis and Exodus, found at https://www.jewishideas.org/article/review-dennis-prager-genesis and https://www.jewishideas.org/article/review-dennis-prager-exodus.

          Throughout the contemporary West, we find increasingly aggressive elements in our government, universities, schools, media, and many other influential venues that viciously attack God, the Bible, family values, the very notion of an objective morality, and many other core ideals we cherish. Many of the biblical principles America is built upon are brutalized or at best ignored.

          Dennis Prager is far better known as a political commentator than a Bible Scholar. Nonetheless, he is animated by his belief in the Torah and its enduring moral messages for humanity. Whether or not one agrees with all of his politics or individual interpretations of the verses, Prager’s commentary is strikingly relevant when he emphasizes the moral revolution of the Torah and the vitality of its moral teachings to today’s increasingly secularized Western world. Prager pinpoints several of the major differences between the Torah’s morality and the dangerous shortcomings of today’s secular West. In this review, we will focus on several of his central points.

In Deuteronomy 1:13, Moses selected judges who were “wise, discerning, and experienced.” All three traits pertain to wisdom, not goodness. Of course, judges also must be good people, but that trait alone is insufficient for leadership. A good society is unattainable without wisdom. Prager observes that “there have always been people who were personally good—individuals who have good intentions and even a kindly disposition—who enabled evil to prevail.”

On a personal level, parents who spoil their children without teaching them right from wrong may be good people, but they lack wisdom. On a global level, communism is the best example of good intentions without wisdom. Communism has killed approximately 100 million people, and enslaved a billion more. Their tyrannical leaders, and some of their supporters, are truly evil people. But many millions of their supporters sincerely believed that communism would build a better world for the future. However, they lacked moral and economic wisdom, thereby supporting and enabling the evil tyrants to obtain and retain power (6-10).

          The world’s freest society, the United States of America, is both a democracy and theocracy. Theocracy without democracy leads to an unfree society. Democracy without God leads to moral and intellectual chaos. George Washington stated, “Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports…reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle.” In a similar vein, John Adams remarked that “Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.” Prager observes that it is no accident that the two mottoes of the United States are “Liberty” and “In God We Trust” (283-285).

The Book of Deuteronomy repeatedly warns against following false gods. Prager enumerates several of today’s “false gods” (71-84). One of the most corrosive elements to the fabric of our increasingly secular society is the elimination of God and the Bible, and replacing its wisdom with an overvaluation of education and intelligence.

Prager quotes Professor Steven Pinker of Harvard University, who observes that “universities are becoming laughingstocks of intolerance.” Well-educated people disproportionately supported the Nazi party, as well as communism. The same is true for those today who hold anti-American and Israeli sentiments.

          In 2015 Prager participated in a debate at the prestigious Oxford Union at Oxford University on the subject of whether Israel or Hamas is a greater obstacle for peace in the Middle East. That this debate could even occur is truly terrifying, given the terrorist organization Hamas’ genocidal charter. Yet, the debate went on, and the majority of the over 400 elite students in attendance voted that Israel is the greater obstacle to peace, as this is what they are taught.

          Education uncoupled from God and morality becomes a false, and a very dangerous, god. Among those naïve enough to think otherwise was Sigmund Freud, who confidently stated in 1927 that secular education could replace religion as the basis for a moral society: “Civilization has little to fear from educated people and brain-workers. In them the replacement of religious motives for civilized behaviors by other, secular motives would proceed unobtrusively.” Within ten years of making that statement, Freud witnessed many of his fellow Austrian and German intellectuals support Nazism and even participate in the atrocities.

          Of course, people who claim to be religious can be evil, and people who do not believe in God can be exceptionally moral. The issue is society and its institutions. Without religious core values, secular society almost inevitably loses its wisdom, and then risks becoming evil.

          The Book of Deuteronomy promises national reward for righteous behavior, and national calamity for wicked behavior and unfaithfulness to God. To the modern mind, such promises often appear to reflect a low-level religious system. Prager defends the Torah’s discourse on several grounds (142-143).

          First, the Torah could have omitted all reference to reward and punishment. This idealistic system is simply untrue to human reality. When people are rewarded for competent work, they work harder and more competently. This is why the capitalistic free market economy was the only system that enabled people to lift themselves out of poverty. Some are seduced by the Marxist socialist ideal of people being rewarded “according to their needs,” rather than for the excellence of their work. This ideology, however, eliminates the incentive to work hand. Further, who determines the “needs” of individuals? Generally not the individual, but the state. This is the road to tyranny and totalitarianism. Prager concludes, “And who doesn’t want to live in a just world? Only the unjust.”

          The Torah could have shifted focus to reward in the afterlife, but its entire agenda is to build a great society in this world.

          Finally, the Torah could have demanded faithfulness based on love of God. However, that argument would work only for the religiously elite few.

          Therefore, the Torah’s stress on this-worldly reward and punishment is the most effective means of promoting a universally righteous society.

          A central theme in Deuteronomy is gratitude. God blesses Israel with a beautiful, bountiful land. The religious hazard of that blessing is that Israel may in turn become spoiled and arrogant, considering their prosperity as their own achievement. Prager comments that “gratitude is the mother of both happiness and goodness.” The easiest way to undermine gratitude is to take something or someone for granted. Most people appreciate what they had only once they have lost it. Parents spoil their children when they give them everything, as children come to expect everything. Saying “thank you” is not merely polite etiquette; these words inculcate gratitude and appreciation. Jewish law has blessings for everything, including eating and even relieving oneself in the bathroom. These blessings, when taken seriously, infuse gratitude and happiness into the most mundane moments (154-156).

          In Deuteronomy 12:20, the Torah permits “secular slaughter” away from the Temple, enabling Israelites to eat meat outside of a sacrificial context. Prager uses this commandment to launch into a discussion regarding animal rights activism gone awry in the secular world. There is an increasingly prevalent value of people and animals being of equal worth. Prager quotes a 2003 PETA ad campaign, which appallingly equated barbequing chickens with the cremation of Jews in the Nazi death camps. They entitled their ad campaign, “Holocaust on your Plate.” It was a Jew at PETA who created that ad campaign, and he doubled down on his assertion that chickens and humans are of equal value when he was challenged.

          In Deuteronomy 19:13, the Torah insists that we show no pity for murderers. The Torah understands that if we see the condemned, we naturally will have pity, and consider withholding the capital punishment. However, such pity overrides the true victims, namely, the person who was murdered and his or her family. In a debate on American television with the leader of an anti-capital punishment vigil being held in front of the prison where a murderer was about to be executed, Prager “asked the activist if he and his supporters had ever held a vigil in support of a murder victim’s family. I received no response” (303-304).

We should lead the world in morality, but not promote a morality so far beyond realism that we subject ourselves to mortal danger. Prager quotes Rabbi Irving (“Yitz”) Greenberg reflecting on the modern State of Israel, surrounded by vicious enemies committed to Israel’s destruction: “If we Jews are five percent better than the rest of the world, we can be a ‘light unto the nations.’ If we are twenty-five percent better than the rest of the world, we can bring the Messiah. If we are fifty percent better than the rest of the world, we’ll all be dead” (316).

          Through these and so many other religious-moral teachings, the Torah was a revolution in world history, and continues to bring relevant, and sorely needed, teaching to the modern world.

[1]Faith, Science, and Orthodoxy

How can an Orthodox Jew in today's world maintain faith in Torah in the face of the apparent challenges of natural science to that faith? I will here examine Maimonides' approach to the issue and then propose my own approach, one which relies upon reverting to what I understand as classic Jewish definitions of faith.

Before beginning I should like to note that I think that my task is relatively simple. Real challenges to Orthodoxy today do not come from the natural sciences but from literary criticism and history, which cast doubt upon the textual integrity of the Written Torah and upon Orthodox understandings of the nature of the Oral Torah;[2] from ethics, which challenges traditional Jewish understandings of the relationship of the sexes and of Jews and non-Jews, among other problems;[3] and from Enlightenment thought generally, which emphasizes the value of autonomy over faithful submission to God.[4]

How did Maimonides approach the reconciliation of Torah and science? He starts off by taking the text of the Torah as literally true in every case: "I believe every possible happening that is supported by a prophetic statement and do not strip it of its plain meaning."[5] But, there is an exception to this general rule: "I fall back on interpreting a statement [allegorically] only when its plain meaning is impossible, like the corporeality of God; the possible however remains as stated." What makes prophetic references to God as corporeal impossible to accept? Maimonides tells us in the Guide of the Perplexed (II.25, p. 328): "That the deity is not a body has been demonstrated; from this it follows necessarily that everything that in its plain meaning disagrees with this demonstration must be interpreted figuratively, for it is known that such texts are of necessity fit for figurative interpretation."

Maimonides' point is relatively straightforward: the Torah must be accepted as literally true in every case where its teachings do not contradict that which has been demonstrated to be true. By demonstration, Maimonides means "a syllogism both of whose premises are apodictic."[6]

Maimonides' position clearly makes demonstrated truth to be the criterion we use for determining which passages in the Torah we read literally, and which passages we read allegorically. If a scientific claim is demonstrably true, and the plain sense of Scripture contradicts it, we may not ignore or reinterpret the scientific claim; we must, rather, reinterpret Scripture. To all intents and purposes, science becomes our measure for understanding the Torah.[7]

Maimonides could be confident that this approach would cause him no problems since, at their deepest levels, Torah and science taught the same thing. Maimonides clearly states that ma^'aseh bereshit is the rabbinic name for that area of study called by the philosophers, “physics,” and ma^'aseh merkavah is the rabbinic name for that area of study called by the philosophers, “metaphysics”.

Maimonides had further reason for calm: the sciences he was concerned with, physics and metaphysics, proved that which he wanted them to prove, that God exists, is one, and is incorporeal. It is acceptance of these three beliefs, as taught by science, that Maimonides construes as the first commandment, “the great principle upon which all depends” ("Laws of the Foundations of the Torah," I.6), the “foundation of all foundations and pillar of the sciences” ( I.1). Monotheism is the central axis around which the entire Torah revolves, denial of which is tantamount to denial of the Torah in its entirety.

In short, as long as science does not refute the existence, unity, and incorporeality of God –and it appears that there is no way it could – progress in the sciences in no way threatens acceptance of the Torah and obedience to the commandments.

Maimonides opened his magisterial law code, Mishneh Torah with the following statement (here translated loosely):

The most important principle of all the principles of the Torah, and the fundamental axiom of all the sciences is the same, to wit, to know that there exists a First Existent, that It gives existence to all that exists, and that all existent beings, from the heaven to the earth and what is between them, exist only due to the truth of Its existence.

Knowing this, Maimonides goes on to say, is a positive commandment – indeed the first positive commandment in his Book of Commandments, not to mention the first of the 'Thirteen Principles'.

In making these claims Maimonides imports science (in the guise of ma'aseh bereshit, Greek physics, and ma'aseh merkavah, Greek metaphysics) into the very heart of Torah. Indeed the Twentieth Century's leading Maimonidean, Rabbi Josef Kafih, went so far as to deny the possibility of secular studies (limmudei hol) for Maimonides: if a discipline yields truth, it is not secular.

Moreover, to know something, for Maimonides (following Aristotle), is to know it through or with its causes. The first commandment of the Torah is to know that God exists; and, as Maimonides makes clear in the Introduction to the Guide of the Perplexed, the only way to fulfill that commandment is through the study of physics and metaphysics.

The implications of this are vast:

• The study of science becomes incumbent upon all Jews who want to fulfill even the first commandment of the Torah.
• Psychoanalysis may be a Jewish science, as its opponents claimed, and Lysenko's biology was certainly socialist 'science', but surely no reader of this book would claim that there can be a Jewish physics or Jewish metaphysics. Thus, the science which Jews are commanded to study is precisely that science which is taught (for Maimonides) by uncircumcised Greeks and oppressive Muslims.
• One who has mastered what Maimonides calls (in the Introduction to the Guide of the Perplexed) the legal science of the Torah (i.e., the Talmudist) is thus inferior to one who has mastered the secrets of the Torah, i.e., the person who understands physics and metaphysics. (It is no wonder that many who read Maimonides expostulate: "This is Greek to me!" and that medieval rabbis wanted to burn or at least excise the 51^st chapter of the third part of the Guide.)

Truth is absolute and objective; there can thus be no such things as intellectual (or spiritual) authority per se. Statements are true irrespective of the standing of the person making them. Maimonides could thus have no patience for the sorts of claims to rabbinic authority which underlie the contemporary doctrine of da'at Torah (charismatic rabbinic authority) in its various permutations.[8]

Thus far Maimonides, for whom natural science meant physics, who operated in a theistic universe, and for whom the greatest question posed by science was whether or not the world was created. What of contemporary thinkers, whose natural universe gets along quite well, thank you, without a final cause, confronted by the claims of geology, paleontology, and evolution, all of which demand far greater liberties with the "plain meaning" of Scripture than did Maimonides' naturalistic explanation of various miracles (but no greater liberty, I should note, than that demanded by his radically non-anthropomorphic reading of verses attributing corporeality to God)?[9]

Maimonides' position, challenging as it is to many contemporary conceptions of Orthodoxy, relies for its cogency upon conceptions of demonstrative truth foreign to the present-day scientific enterprise. Since little that science teaches today is demonstrably true in Maimonides' sense, his position offers us no guidance on how to relate Torah and science in the contemporary world.

Much of contemporary Orthodoxy has, it appears, backed itself into something of a corner with respect to the question of science and Torah. It has rather unreflectively adopted a kind of quasi-Maimonideanism according to which Judaism teaches truth in much the same way that science teaches truth. What brings Orthodoxy to adopt this stance? It makes two crucial assumptions, or, I should say, accepts two Maimonidean teachings which lock it into this position. The first concerns the "centrality of faith-commitments in Judaism" and the second the idea that Judaism recognizes a category of "commandments addressed to the intellect."[10]

Much of Orthodoxy today holds, in the words of Rabbi J. David Bleich, that "basic philosophical beliefs are not simply matters of intellectual curiosity but constitute a branch of Halakhah" and that matters of dogma are decided like other areas of halakhah. Bleich has recently reiterated the same position: "matters of belief," he maintains, "are inherently matters of halakha. It is not at all surprising that disagreements exist with regard to substantive matters of belief, just as is the case with regard to other areas of Jewish law. Such matters are subject to the canons of halakhic decision-making no less than other questions of Jewish law."[11] This position invites conflicts between science and Torah since matters of belief include issues under the purview of the sciences. That is what Maimonides did; but how many of today's Orthodox Jews who agree with this position today would be willing to follow Maimonides in making "demonstration" (i.e., science) the arbiter of what the Torah means?[12]

There are a number of things which have to be said in response to this sort of position. First, I think that it misrepresents Maimonides: basic philosophical beliefs are neither simply matters of intellectual curiosity nor a branch of halakhah. They are attempts to understand the true nature of the universe to the greatest extent possible. Ma'aseh bereshit is the rabbinic term for what the Greeks called physics; ma'aseh merkavah is the rabbinic expression for what the Greeks called metaphysics – and these two are called the "roots" of the specific halakhot (gufei Torah). Considering that these roots are either true or false absolutely, it is literally inconceivable that Maimonides could have held that their truth status depends upon rabbinic psak (decision), as would be the case were they matters of halakhah. This leads to my second point: can we seriously credit the idea that Maimonides would have held that before he "paskened" (decided halakhically) that Moses was superior to all the other prophets before and after him, for example, that the question was undecided in Judaism? Similarly, of course, with respect to the other twelve of the Thirteen Principles. Of course not. Third, even were this understanding of Maimonides correct, the latter's position is quite clearly an innovation in Judaism and it is simply incorrect to read it back into rabbinic texts.[13]

None of this is meant to minimize the contribution of Maimonides to Judaism. Maimonides' position that truth is objective and must be accepted whatever its source[14] and his willingness to understand the Torah such that it cannot conflict with the teachings of reason are two aspects of his thought that make it possible for many people today to remain faithful to Torah and Judaism without feeling that they must turn off their brains. These teachings concerning Judaism only make sense if we insist that the Torah addresses the intellect and not just the limbs.[15]

But if the Torah contains the truth, why not command its acceptance, or at the very least, teach it in a very clear and unambiguous fashion? The reason is that for Bible and Talmud the translation of ultimate truth into clearly defined and manageable statements was less a pressing need than it was for Maimonides. Let me put this as follows: Maimonides and the Talmud agree that God's truth is embodied in the Torah. The Talmud finds pressing the need to determine the practical, this-worldly consequences of that truth, while Maimonides, in addition, finds its necessary to determine the specific, cognitive content of that truth. On one level, Maimonides is clearly right: Judaism does teach truth; but, on the other hand, his insistence on expressing that truth in specific teachings is an innovation in Judaism.

The point I am trying to make here comes out in the well-known talmudic story concerning the oven of Akhnai (Bava Mezia 59b). The Sages debated whether a particular kind of oven could become ritually impure. The text says:

On that day R. Eliezer brought all the answers in the world [to support his position] but they were not accepted. He said to them: "If the halakhah accords with my opinion, let this carob tree prove it!" The carob tree uprooted itself and moved 100 amot [c. 50 yards] – some say, it was 400 amot. The [other] rabbis said to him: "One does not bring a proof from a carob tree." He continued, saying "If the halakhah accords with my opinion, let this pool of water prove it!" The water thereupon flowed backwards. They said to him: "One does not bring a proof from a pool of water." He continued, saying "If the halakhah accords with my opinion, let the walls of this house of study prove it!" The walls of the house of study thereupon began to fall inward. Rabbi Joshua reproved them [the walls]: "By what right do you interfere when Sages battle each other over halakhah?" The walls did not fall [all the way] out of respect for R. Joshua and did not stand upright [again] out of respect for R. Eliezer. To this day, they stand at an angle. He then said to them, "If the halakhah accords with my opinion, let it be proved by Heaven!" A voice from Heaven [immediately] spoke forth: "How do you disagree with R. Eliezer, when the halakhah accords with his opinion in every place?"[16] R. Joshua then stood upon his legs and said, It is not in Heaven! [Deut 30: 12]. [The Talmud then asks,] "What is the significance of It is not in Heaven?" R. Jeremiah said, "Since the Torah was given at Mt. Sinai we pay no attention to voices from Heaven [in determining halakhah] since You [i.e., God, the source of heavenly voices] have already written in the Torah at Mt. Sinai, turn aside after a multitude [Exodus 23:2]. R. Nathan met Elijah and said to him, "What did the Holy One, blessed be He, do when this happened?" Elijah replied: "He smiled and said, 'My children have defeated me! My children have defeated me!'."

Much can be (and has been!) said about this fascinating passage. Here it will suffice to quote an insightful comment of David Kraemer's: "Of course, we must assume that if the heavenly voice supported R. Eliezer's view, his view must have been closer to the 'truth.' Nevertheless, his truth is rejected, and the view of the sages, though objectively in error, is affirmed."[17] Judaism teaches truth, and that fact must never be forgotten. But the ultimate truth taught by the Torah need not necessarily be understood in its detailed specificity for us to live in the world in a decent fashion; while there is one objective "truth," the Talmud is interested in arriving at a halakhic determination, rather than at a determinate understanding of the final truth. We can safely put off determining the exact truth until the earth be full of the knowledge of the Lord, as the waters cover the sea (Isaiah 11:9);[18] but in the meantime we must know how to live.[19]

This talmudic position, I think, makes it possible for Jews to reach ever-greater understandings of the truth taught by the Torah and allows them to express that truth in language appropriate to each age. Had Judaism adopted a Maimonidean, as opposed to talmudic, understanding of the nature of our relation to the truth taught by the Torah, we would be forced to express our vision of the Universe in terms of the Neoplatonized Aristotelianism adopted by Maimonides. Our situation would be similar to that of Habad hasidim, who feel constrained to accept Maimonides' Ptolemaic description of the physical universe as "Torah from heaven," or to that of those Catholics who accept Thomism as normative and authoritative. But "the Torah is not in heaven" – it must be lived in this world, while the absolute truth which it embodies remains "from heaven," a constant challenge to our understanding, a constant critique of our tendency to intellectual complacency. The talmudic position, as hinted at in the story of the oven of Akhnai, allows Judaism to live and breathe in today's world as much as in yesterday's.

Maimonides, I have argued in a number of places, understood religious faith primarily in terms of propositions affirmed or denied. Bible and Talmud understood religious faith primarily in terms of trust and loyalty. This being so, "orthodoxy" is actually a misnomer, since Judaism, before Maimonides, knew no doctrines (=doxos) concerning which one absolutely had to be clearly and self-consciously "straight" (=ortho).

It is further important to realize that even though classical Judaism does not understand the nature of emunah as Maimonides does, and therefore places little value and emphasis on precise theological formulations, there are limits to what one can affirm or deny and still remain within the Jewish community. Note my terminology here: there are limits to what one can affirm or deny and still remain with the Jewish community. Denying the unity of God, for example, or that the Torah is of divine origin in some significant sense, or affirming that the Messiah has already come, are claims which place one outside of the historical community of Israel.

Returning to the issue of "faith, science, and Orthodoxy," I am here proposing that we understand Jewish faith in terms of loyalty to God, Torah, and Israel, loyalty which finds expression in the fulfillment of the commandments and less as "commandments addressed to the intellect." It follows from this that the criterion for what we now call "Orthodoxy" should be construed less in terms of adherence to specific dogmas and more in terms of behavior which evinces trust in God. I further propose that we follow Maimonides in taking demonstrated truth to be the arbiter of how we understand Torah. But since we are not yet in the age of the Messiah, and the knowledge of the Lord does not yet cover the earth as the waters cover the sea, that means that we understand neither science nor Torah fully. One does not have to be a fan of Star Trek to know that we live in age in which we expect our scientific paradigms to change. One can be a fully "Orthodox" Jew and maintain that, yes, the Torah teaches truth, but that we do not yet really understand that truth.

In concrete terms, I am calling for modesty, both as scientists and as believers. Modesty yes, a total suspension of belief/disbelief, no. To reject the claim that the earth is vastly old, for example, is not only to reject the science of geology, but the entire edifice of contemporary physics and chemistry. The cosmos simply cannot be 5769 years old. This, of course, is only a problem for the most stubborn of Biblical literalists. But how about Noah's flood? There is no geological or archeological evidence that the entire earth was once covered by water; nor is it possible for humanity, in its rich diversity, to have developed and spread over the globe in the roughly four and one half millennia which have passed since the time of Noah. In these and other matters, the Written Torah cannot be taken literally without rejecting the crushingly overwhelming weight of scientific evidence.

But in many other, and more important areas, we may not fully understand the Torah, but science has not yet had its last word either: on God's existence, the creation of the cosmos, Sinaitic revelation, providence, prophecy, miracles, efficacy of prayer, the special relationship of God to the Jewish people, divine retribution, etc., science seems to have little definite to say to us, and it appears to me, is not likely to have much to say in the foreseeable future.

In the final analysis, if we are really to use the eyes God gave us,[20] we can do no other but revert to a qualified Maimonideanism: the Torah cannot contradict that which has been proven scientifically but science often proves less than what some scientists think they have proven. We must live in a world of fewer absolutes than many thinkers (rabbis and scientists alike) would like: the Torah cannot teach what science rejects as false, but the evidence of science is not yet fully in, so we do not yet know what the Torah really teaches^.[21]

Book Review

Sukkot: Insights from the Past, Present, and Future (The Habura, 2022)

          We once again have the privilege to review a book by The Habura, a recently-founded England-based organization that has been promoting thoughtful Torah learning since 2020. It is headed by Rabbi Joseph Dweck, Senior Rabbi of the Spanish and Portuguese Community of the United Kingdom (see www.TheHabura.com).

          The Habura promotes the inclusion of Sephardic voices and ideas in Jewish discourse, coupled with an openness to the broad wisdom of the Jewish people and the world. In this regard, their ideology strongly dovetails ours at the Institute for Jewish Ideas and Ideals.

          In addition to their Zoom classes and other programs, they have been publishing holiday companion volumes (as well as other material). I reviewed their Pesah volume last April (https://www.jewishideas.org/article/book-review-haburas-passover-volume).

Their recently published Sukkot volume contains an array of eighteen essays. The first two are by Sephardic rabbis of the 19^th and 20^th centuries, Rabbis Abraham Pereira Mendes (1825-1893, Jamaica, England, and the United States) and Hayim David Halevi (1923-1998, Sephardic Chief Rabbi of Tel Aviv). The rest of the book is divided between contemporary rabbis and scholars, and younger upcoming scholars who participate in the learning of The Habura.

          The essays span a variety of topics pertaining to Sukkot in the areas of Jewish thought, faith, halakha, and custom. They generally are well-written and well-researched, and often present enlightening ideas. In this brief review, I will summarize three essays that I found most edifying.

          Rabbi Joseph Dweck explores the unusual commandment to rejoice on Sukkot (Deuteronomy 16:14). It is curious that other faith traditions viewed the changing of the seasons to autumn (in the northern hemisphere) as cause for bleaker holiday reactions. Roman Catholics observe All Soul’s Day, which appears in Mexico as the Dia de los Muertos (Day of the Dead). This holiday translates to the more widespread Halloween. The Angel of Death is even nicknamed “The Grim Reaper,” reflecting the incoming gloom of winter that follows the harvest season. How does Sukkot become such a profoundly joyous time?

          A central theme of Sukkot is the fleetingness of the physical world. This realistic perspective enables us to experience joy while recognizing that it is temporary. Sigmund Freud wrote an essay entitled “On Transience,” in which he asserted that life’s transience helps us appreciate the preciousness and beauty of each experience.

          Rabbi Dweck believes that Freud has identified the root of our joy on Sukkot and concludes, “When we can come to this understanding about the world, we can truly come to embrace and accept life on its own terms—and in doing that, we can truly know happiness.”

          Pursuing a different angle into the theme of joy on Sukkot, Gershon Engel explains that nowadays, we indeed emphasize our dependence on God rather than relying on the permanence of our homes (e.g., Rabbi Yitzhak Aboab, Menorat HaMa’or III, 4:6). Of course, the biblical Sukkot revolved around the harvest. This holiday was uniquely joyous in ancient Israel, as the harvests were in and farmers did not need to rush home as they would after Pesah and Shavuot.

          By transferring the meaning of Sukkot from agriculture to more universal religious themes, Jews were able to preserve a sense of joy on Sukkot even after the termination of the agrarian life that had characterized our people for much of our existence.

Engel quotes Benjamin Disraeli in his classic work Tancred, who expressed awe in the Jews for retaining their sense of joy on Sukkot while in the exile:

The vineyards of Israel have ceased to exist, but the eternal law enjoins the children of Israel still to celebrate the vintage. A race that persists in celebrating their vintage, although they have no fruits to gather, will regain their vineyards. What sublime inexorability in the law! But what indomitable spirit in the people!

          Addressing the halakhic question of wearing tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed the intermediate weekdays) of Pesah and Sukkot, Yehuda J.W. Leikin observes that the Babylonian and Jerusalem Talmuds both appear to suggest that wearing tefillin on the middle days of Pesah and Sukkot is normative.

The three halakhic pillars behind Rabbi Yosef Karo’s Shulhan Arukh—Rabbi Yitzhak Alfasi (Rif), Rambam, and Rabbenu Asher (Rosh), all agree that wearing tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed is the proper observance. While several other leading medieval rabbinic authorities, including Rabbi Shelomo ibn Aderet (Rashba) and Rabbi Avraham ben David (Ra’avad), maintain that tefillin should not be worn, Rabbi Karo generally follows his three pillars of rabbinic ruling.

          In this case, however, Rabbi Karo forbids the wearing of tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed, and rules prohibitively because the Zohar strongly opposes the wearing of tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed (Bet Yosef, Orah Hayyim 31:2). Rabbi Karo reports that in Spain, the original practice was to wear tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed until they discovered the Zohar’s prohibition. In contrast, Rabbi Moshe Isserles (Rama) maintains that Ashkenazim should wear tefillin, following the ruling of Rabbenu Asher (Rosh).

          Thus, the Sephardic practice to refrain from wearing tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed reflects an unusual move from classical halakhic sources to kabbalah. Leikin concludes that Rabbi Yosef Karo may have been inclined to accept the kabbalistic ruling in this instance, since there also were great halakhists who also opposed wearing tefillin on hol ha-mo’ed.

          There are many other fine essays in this Sukkot companion, and we look forward to future volumes from The Habura.

*

          I had the privilege of giving a three-part series for the Habura in February-March, 2022. You may view these lectures on our YouTube channel:

Tanakh and Superstition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PD68xZ4J4M8&t=5s

Torah and Archaeology:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dN1XAtia_x0&t=24s

Torah and Literalism: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K__jp8V9sXY&t=4s

          I also am scheduled to give two talks to the Habura on April 17 and 19, 2023.

The Institute looks forward to further partnering with The Habura in the future and building our shared vision together.

Angel for Shabbat, Parashat Noah

by Rabbi Marc D. Angel

It is painful to hear hateful words. Unfortunately, hardly a day goes by when we aren’t confronted by statements of anti-Semitism, racism, political mud-slinging. So-called “celebrities” spout their malicious lies about Jews, about Israel, about any group they wish to slander.

Why is hateful speech so widespread?

Erich Fromm has written of the syndrome of decay that “prompts men to destroy for the sake of destruction and to hate for the sake of hate.” Because of their frustrations, feelings of inferiority and malignant narcissism, many people poison their own lives with hatred. Indeed, some only feel truly alive and validated when they express hatred of others.

When we hear bigots rail against “the Jews” or “the Israelis,” we instinctively sense that these haters are morally blind, ignorant about Jews and Israel.  When we are confronted by so-called human rights organizations and academics who malign Israel, we are appalled by their hatred and perversion of truth.  Haters are dangerous. It is imperative for moral and informed people to stand up and refute the lies and calumnies.

Hateful words are uttered by many people on various rungs of the social ladder. The common denominator is their participation in the syndrome of decay. Their hatred not only erodes their own lives, it contributes to undermining the social fabric of society as a whole. It makes all good people feel uneasy. Where will this hatred lead? To spreading hatred among others? To violence?

In this week’s Torah reading, God orders Noah to build an ark. Humanity had become so corrupt that the Almighty decided to destroy all but Noah and family. In providing instructions for the construction of the ark, God tells Noah: “You shall make a light for the ark”—tsohar ta’aseh latevah. Our commentators suggest that this light was a skylight window or a precious stone that could refract light throughout the ark.

A Hassidic rabbi offered a different reading of the text. The word “tevah” means ark; but it also means “word.” In his homiletical interpretation, the verse should be understood as follows: “make your word generate light.” When you speak, your words should be positive, encouraging, enlightening. They should contribute light to a world struggling against the forces of darkness.

Martin Buber diagnosed a serious problem within modern society. “That people can no longer carry on authentic dialogue with one another is not only the most acute symptom of the pathology of our time, it is also that which most urgently makes a demand of us.”  His observation relates to the breakdown of honest communication among people, especially among people outside one’s immediate circle of family and friends. It also relates to the breakdown in communication among nations.

Instead of viewing ourselves as co-partners in society, the syndrome of decay leads us to view others as enemies…real or potential threats to our well-being. When we can’t trust each other, when we can’t speak kindly to each other or about each other, then society is afflicted with the pathology that Buber laments.

Tsohar ta’aseh latevah: each of us, in our own way, can add light and understanding to our world by speaking words of encouragement, kindness, and respectfulness. We should work toward a society that repudiates hateful words and deeds, where the haters themselves will come to see the error of their way.

Those whose words are hateful generate darkness, mistrust, societal disintegration.

Those whose words bring light to the world are humanity’s only real hope.

Our National Scholar, Rabbi Hayyim Angel, reviews two recent books on the interface between traditional and academic Bible study, with consideration of the religious ramifications of various approaches.

The article appears in the current issue of Tradition, the journal of the Rabbinical Council of America.

You may access the article online here: https://traditiononline.org/when-blurring-peshat-and-derash-creates-a-new-theology-a-critique-of-participatory-revelation/

The Nature of Inquiry: A Common Sense Perspective[1]

 Rabbi Shalom Carmy 

In an article in the first issue of The Torah U-Madda Journal, “Torah u-Madda and Freedom of Inquiry,” Rabbi Yehuda Parnes makes no fewer than three major claims that require more careful analysis. One is a theory about the nature of what he calls madda. The second is a reading of Rambam in Hil. ‘Avodah Zarah 2:2–3, the burden of which is to confine study of divrei kefirah (heresy) and idolatry to situations of le-havin u-le-horot (“understanding and decision-making”). Finally, his conclusion: “Based on all of the above, Torah u-Madda can only be viable if it imposes strict limits on freedom of inquiry in areas that may undermine the thirteen ‘ikkarei emunah” (principles of faith) (QED).[2] 

The second issue of this journal carried a response by Lawrence Kaplan and David Berger offering an alternative reading of the Rambam, and touching indirectly on Rabbi Parnes’s conclusion. They also say a great deal on behalf of a broad interpretation of le-havin u-le-horot, namely “[t]he possibility that grappling with a particular book or system of philosophy may lead to a revised and deeper understanding of Torah principles.”[3] 

My own contribution to the debate will consider all three of Rabbi Parnes’s contentions. On the matter of le-havin u-le-horot, I am very much in sympathy with Kaplan and Berger, as my remarks in this essay should amply illustrate.

I

Rabbi Parnes asserts that liberal arts education (= madda) cannot permit “any constraint on honest and inquisitive searching for truth” (p. 69). This is not true. Such constraints are quite common, on both ethical and intellectual grounds. 

Examples: Biological experiments in which human beings are tortured are generally prohibited, even when they promise to yield interesting scientific results. Scientists are increasingly reluctant to torment animals in the name of science. Many refuse to make use of results obtained through immoral research, such as that conducted by Nazi doctors in the concentration camps, in this respect adopting a standard more stringent than that required by halakha.[4] Many secularists (most notably in the feminist movement) would proscribe the reading of various works of pornography as inherently immoral. Others would advocate a moratorium on research dealing with racial and gender differences for reasons of social morality. Seriously entertaining false beliefs of an insidious tendency, taking them to heart, even when motivated by the “honest and inquisitive searching for truth” is, according to this view, morally wrong. Other concerns, not inherently moral in nature, would likewise stay the hand of inquiry according to most educators. Study that is likely to squander such precious resources as time, intellect, and money would be frowned upon and, beyond a certain point, effectively curtailed. When such considerations come into play, does it matter that the inquiry to be snuffed out is “honest and inquisitive searching for truth”? Surely not. No doubt there are laborers in the scientific vineyard who would try very hard to reject any, or all, of these constraints on research. For them “honest and inquisitive searching for truth” is an absolute, or almost absolute, value, which therefore cannot be overridden by any duty or competing value. It is also natural that those who love knowledge and wisdom will be averse to any limitation on inquiry, and loath to give voice to proscription even when they reluctantly recognize its appropriateness. This is especially so since suppression of free inquiry and free thought has often been employed deceitfully, to uphold the fraudulent heaven-groping facade of self-proclaimed authority, or to shelter the darting-eyed wickedness that cannot tolerate the light of day. Surely many contemporary demands to suspend critical thought on various subjects of consequence in the name of political correctness are self-important, self-serving, and redolent of intellectual and moral indolence and cowardice. 

Because restraining inquiry and its free expression has gotten a bad name, scientists and humanists usually conceal the fist of authority, both moral and intellectual, in a velvet glove: Only if the deviant fails to recognize his/her insensitivity, lack of sophistication, or ignorance will the stronger medicine come into play: the control of grades, fellowships, jobs, etc. We are a civilized society: The “wrong” position on homosexuality no longer rates the stake; merely suspension without pay at CBS (with prospect of early parole if the ratings warrant).[5] But whether particular moral curbs on free inquiry and expression are justified or not, is not significant for our characterization of liberal arts education. What matters is that claims on behalf of such restrictions on “honest and inquisitive searching for truth,” however skeptically scrutinized, are not dismissed out of hand, as violations of madda. 

Thus madda, as it is actually practiced, recognizes, for a variety of reasons and in a variety of circumstances, limits on freedom of inquiry. No intellectual activity can take place in isolation from the rest of our knowledge (a point that will become important to our discussion below); by the same token, no intellectual activity may be pursued in an ethical vacuum. Of course there is a difference between violating the moral and utilitarian norms incorporated in the practice of madda and violating the Torah’s prohibitions. It is the difference between being a fool and being a sinner, between breaching a man-made rule and rebelling against a divine law. But that difference, important as it is, has nothing to do with the fact of constraint itself. 

            The whole idea that whoever advocates or accepts any constraint on free inquiry runs “counter to madda and all that it implies” (as Rabbi Parnes puts it on p. 69), and is presumably self-banished from the garden of madda, is so fantastic that I must pause to consider why one would entertain a conception of madda so remote from reality and so alien to healthy common sense. Any attempt to explain the perennial attraction of the “absolute freedom” theory of madda must distinguish the differing motivations of its proponents. 

1. Thinkers opposed to Torah aim to exploit our healthy bias in favor of intellectual honesty either to undermine Torah or to divert our attention from the fact that madda does not really tender absolute and unrestricted allegiance to the unfettered search for truth. If Torah is against intellectual honesty, and madda is for it, then madda leads 1–0. 

2. Those who favor Torah, but oppose Torah u-Madda, would like to exploit our presumed healthy bias in favor of Torah to undermine either madda or our healthy bias in favor of intellectual honesty. If Torah is against it, but madda demands it, then some of us will reject madda. (What about the people who draw the opposite conclusion and reject Torah? Presumably their commitment was deficient to begin with, so we needn’t bother about them.) 

3. Many individuals, with no polemical agenda of their own, may accept the “absolute freedom” model of madda simply because they have not thought through the issues on their own. As R. Bahya ibn Pakuda points out, one of the consequences of eschewing philosophical reflection is that your mind is held hostage to what other people say.[6] 

4. A different account of the power exercised by the “absolute freedom” doctrine would occur to someone who has thought about the history of science and philosophy in the last several centuries. Such an individual might, at the risk of oversimplification, tell something like the following story: 

Early in the modern period (the sixteenth century would not be too early), scientific inquiry was held back by certain views prevalent among the official exponents of the then-current Christian teaching. As science succeeded in pushing back the frontiers of ignorance in many areas, while religion seemed to distinguish itself primarily in the promotion of strife, many thinking (and even more non-thinking) people concluded that the teachings of biblical religion were either false, or had been falsely interpreted. In addition, many were taken by the idea, going back to Plato, that the kind of argumentation traditionally employed in mathematics is the exclusive highway to privileged truth. Since Judaism, like Christianity, with its historical and anthropological orientation, does not speak in the name of mathematical truth, it must apply for recognition to science rather than itself judge the validity of human investigations. Hence, the best thing for truth is to let science alone, and certainly not to let religious “values” (by this point “religious knowledge” had been so discredited as to become a virtual oxymoron) hold sway over intellectual endeavor. 

The individual who has reflected on the matter knows that the inference of the last sentence is not conclusive. That religious authority has been abused, that even when properly exercised it is liable, occasionally, to fall into folly while fleeing from sin, does not imply that it ought never to be exercised. Observing those who fall under the three classes described above, the advocate of the last approach concludes that they have succumbed to an exaggerated account of the dichotomy between the freedom supposedly held out by madda and the bunker mentality ascribed to Torah. One knows that one owes one’s liberation from the evil enchantment of the “absolute freedom” fantasy, at least in part, to one’s understanding of the historical process whereby the spell was cast. One’s own ability to embrace the Torah’s limitations on free investigation is indebted to that enhanced understanding. One suspects that, had one not worked through the epistemological trauma and scotoma of modernity, one would have ended up either rejecting Torah or working one’s self into a vehement yet, at the same time, slyly vacuous exercise of piety, as one humoring a slightly deaf, and more than slightly rich, elderly relation. 

II

Rambam’s normative limitation of free inquiry, as understood by Rabbi Parnes, is the centerpiece of his critique. Both Rabbi Parnes and Kaplan and Berger agree that the key to a precise definition of the Rambam’s proscription is to be found in the rationale by which he augments the halakha: 

Any thought which leads a human being to uproot one of the principles of the Torah, we are enjoined not to take it upon our heart, and we should not divert our minds to such, and dwell [upon it] and be drawn after the thoughts of the heart. This is because man’s understanding is slight, and not all minds can attain truth thoroughly. If a man is drawn after the thoughts of his heart he may destroy the world as a result of his limited understanding. How? At times he will rove after idolatry. At times he will think about God being one: maybe it is so, maybe it isn’t. What is above, what is below, what is before, what is after. And sometimes about prophecy: maybe it is true, maybe it isn’t. And sometimes about the Torah: maybe it is from Heaven, maybe it is not. And he does not know the categories by which he should judge [ha-middot she-yadin bahen] in order to know truth thoroughly; hence he is liable to deviate into minut. 

Rabbi Parnes examines two interpretations of the restriction: (1) Rambam only prohibited study undertaken with the purpose of forsaking Torah, thus leaving the Torah u-Madda advocate untouched. This is untenable, for such a prohibition would not require a rationale. Thus we are left with (2) Rambam intended to prohibit what Rabbi Parnes calls “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” (p. 70). Kaplan and Berger, for their part, emphasize Rambam’s warning about the frailty of untrained human reasoning. In their opinion, Rambam prohibits individ­uals who are intellectually unprepared from undertaking the study of idolatrous literature and the like. 

Note that the two approaches to the Rambam do not necessarily exclude each other. Rabbi Parnes may very well maintain that Rambam prohibits “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” (except in cases of le-havin u-le-horot) and that he also prohibits inquiry by unqualified individuals. Conversely, one might agree with Kaplan and Berger that Rambam restricted inquiry only to those who are intellectually prepared, yet also agree with Rabbi Parnes that “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” is off limits as well. The difficulty in attempting to harmonize or contrast the two approaches is that I am not quite sure what Rabbi Parnes means by “honest and objective freedom of inquiry.” The precise meaning of this phrase is clearly crucial to the entire discus­sion, and we shall get to it in a moment.  First, however, let us direct our attention to the next part of Rambam’s rationale, which was not brought into the debate by any of my colleagues. Here Rambam sketches the outstanding features of the inquirer whom we are told not to emulate. What is this intellectual up to? This is a person who, as the occasion bemuses him or her, holds some principle of faith at arm’s length and speculates whether it is true or false. Yes, that person is not doing so in order to forsake Torah. Is that person then engaged in the “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” in which madda glories? By that person’s own lights he or she is. If that person is justified in regarding his or her activity as “honest and objective freedom of inquiry,” then Rambam’s vignette strikingly confirms Rabbi Parnes’s interpretation of the prohibition: What he infers from the existence of a rationale, I derive directly from the content of the rationale. If, however, Rambam’s anti-hero cannot lay claim to the halo of “honest and objective inquiry,” then Rambam is, in effect, adding a noteworthy dimension to his depiction of the unprepared person discussed by Kaplan and Berger. The unqualified person is not only one who is deficient in the tools of inquiry; he or she is also one engaged in an aimless free-floating speculation about religious matters, rather than a faith striving for greater understanding.[7] 

In this connection we should also take note of Rambam’s comment on Avot 2:14 (“know what to answer the apikoros”): “Even though you study the opinions of the nations to respond to them, beware that you not take to your heart any of those opinions.” Is Rambam prohibiting intellectual honesty, or is he enjoining us, in the course of studying heretical views, from “taking to heart,” i.e., seriously entertaining the heretical views?[8]

In any event, we cannot properly understand Rabbi Parnes’s position without trying to define what he means by “honest and objective inquiry.” To this task we shall now proceed. 

            Earlier we have seen that Rabbi Parnes means no more and no less than the ideal of “absolute freedom,” when he refers to the “honest and inquisitive searching for truth,” the tiniest deviation from which runs “counter to madda and all that it implies.” In formulating his halakhic position, he introduces the term “objective” to characterize the kind of inquiry the Rambam would rule out. 

“Objective freedom of inquiry”: What does it mean? The concept of objectivity has, of course, a long and elusive history in the philosophical literature. It would seem safe to assume, however, that Rabbi Parnes’s usage is based on ordinary language, rather than tracking the specialized meanings developed by professional philosophers over the centuries. The dictionary yields two meanings of objective that might apply to beliefs: 

1. belonging to the object of thought rather than the thinking subject; 
2. free from personal feelings; unbiased. 

Both definitions are confusing if they are applied to Rabbi Parnes’s account of the inquiry banned by the Rambam. Atheists indeed maintain that God, prophecy, Torah, and other articles of faith are not objective truths, but productions of “the thinking subject.” Believing Jews do not. We hold that the ‘ikkarei emunah pertain to reality independent of humanity, not merely to “the thinking subject.” As to the second definition: believing Jews assent to these propositions because they are convinced of their “objective” truth, not because they are indulging their personal feelings or predilections. To deny, let alone prohibit objectivity, in these senses, goes against the very idea of a revealed religion. This cannot possibly be Rabbi Parnes’s intent. 

Despite the linguistic muddle, it would not be presumptuous to explain Rabbi Parnes’s aversion to objective inquiry in the following manner: Madda, or more precisely the different intellectual disciplines that constitute the liberal arts body of knowledge as it is studied in the standard modern university, depends upon some consensus about data and methodology. Each discipline and discourse, from this perspective, is treated as autonomous and sovereign within its own boundaries. Each discipline determines its own methodology and recognizes the range of data to which the appropriate methods of investigation are applied. To introduce material—data or principles of thought—from outside the discipline, violates “the very integrity of the madda process itself” (to borrow Rabbi Parnes’s phrase earlier in his article). In less drastic language than Rabbi Parnes’s, the infusion of material extraneous to the disciplinary matrix is not acceptable because it is liable to raise diffi­culties for the orderly, methodical pursuit of research, and impedes scientific cooperation. Hence, the individual who, seeking admission to the temple of madda, brings along data external to the discipline, and who ignores the gatekeeper’s admonition that all beliefs must be checked in at the door; challenges the conventions; and, unless he or she succeeds in changing them, is charged with smuggling unsuitable personal predilections into the academic domain. Such stubborn insistence on one’s own perception of truth could be stigmatized as lacking objectivity. Now, as it happens, the gatekeepers of madda do not include, among the recognized disciplines and modes of discourse, any that accept the truth of the ‘ikkarei emunah. Because the believing Jew is committed to the normative beliefs taught by the Torah, he or she cannot approach the sciences or the humanities without those beliefs, and in many areas—in the most important areas—his or her inquiry will be guided by those beliefs. Therefore, on this account, the believing Jew is incapable of objective inquiry in virtually all the areas that really count. 

The view I have just described as implicit in Rabbi Parnes’s analysis of madda is asserted quite openly by others. I suppose that this is what is meant when certain academic types, including observant Jews, solemnly intone that no believing Jew can truly qualify as a biblical “scholar” because Orthodoxy prevents one from confronting the regnant academic theories with a genuinely open mind. I am less accustomed to hearing this argument from serious philosophers, for reasons that will shortly become clear. 

            Granted, the account of objectivity in madda that we have just encountered, according to which “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” and Orthodox Jewish belief do not mix, conforms to one strand in popular usage. Yet we may cast upon it a quizzical eye. Is it indeed the case that intellectual honesty requires us to forsake all knowledge that is not certified a part of the discipline we are studying at the moment? From a common sense perspective, inquiry that systematically ignores everything else we know (including the knowledge given us through revelation), is not honest. On the contrary—it is the height of perversity! 

To be sure, there are situations in which we legitimately, for a variety of reasons, set aside knowledge that we rely upon in other areas of life. A geometry student who is asked whether a triangle with sides 13, 12, and 5 inches in length is a right-angled triangle forgets that he has measured the angle (and pretends he has not peeked at the answer in the back of the book). Instead she appeals to Pythagoras’s Theorem. Why? Because the geometric method is constituted by a specific kind of reasoning, one that excludes measurement and/or looking at the back of the book. In real life, when laying bricks, for example, there is no objection to achieving a right angle by measurement, using a plumb line, or, if that is one’s pleasure, by consulting “the back of a book.” Similarly, the halakhic jurist must set aside the evidence of Moshe and Aharon because, as brothers, their testimony is not valid, without doubting in the least the truth of their assertions. The American juror, likewise, is occasionally instructed to erase certain information from his judicial consciousness not because it is false, but for reasons of legal propriety (e.g., the evidence was illegally obtained). As to the subject of the present discussion, an eminent school of Rishonim, including Saadia, R. Bahya ibn Pakuda, and Rambam, deemed it worthwhile to discover what religious knowledge can be obtained without recourse to the data of revelation. They were convinced that this study would deepen one’s understanding of the principles to which we, as religious Jews, are committed. 

In view of the frequent successes achieved by this method of isolating a discipline or discourse from its context in the real world, it is not surprising that many modern thinkers sought to establish all inquiry on the model of self-contained enterprises like mathematics. When we add modern people’s recurrent longing for self-guaranteed certainty, for intellectual self-sufficiency, for the God’s-eye perspective that the contemporary philosopher Thomas Nagel has called “the view from nowhere,”[9] we can even understand how certain thought-intoxicated philosophers like Hegel aspired, incredibly, arrogantly, and influentially, to a total system of knowledge that would refer only to itself. But the advantages accruing from the occasional narrowing of our intellectual focus hardly justify the implausible theory that “honest and objective inquiry” is predicated upon the deliberate and systematic suppression of all knowl­edge not mandated by the discipline constituted in terms of that narrow focus. Only in the psychiatric ward (and in mathematics, which is not “about” the real world) is ratiocination extolled that proceeds without regard for reality. 

Nonetheless, the rationalist project of knowledge without presuppositions, or knowledge based upon foundations entirely transparent to thought, has enjoyed a long run in our culture. It would be important, but beyond the scope of this discussion, to examine the major manifesta­tions of this tendency in modern thought. These include currents otherwise antagonistic to each other, like Cartesian rationalism, Hume’s phenomenalism (which supplements the ideas of logic with the impressions of sense experience), and Hegel’s circular epistemology. The common denominator of all these movements is the assumption that the human cognitive venture can, and should, be conducted independent of what we know, or think we know, outside of the “integrity of the madda process.” 

The inspiring rationalist project has not gone unchallenged. Real men and women lead a real existence before, and apart from, their official intellectual identities. They can neither undertake knowing, nor make sense of their knowledge, or even endeavor to revise their errors, save by placing their thinking in the context of their lives. Our language, our habits of thought, our assumptions, and so forth, are not discovered by us. Instead we find ourselves given to them, to the residue of tradition and the common stock of human experience. Last but not least, believers in revealed religion, including those who have stood at Sinai, know the absolute autonomy of “the madda process” to be a dangerous illusion. These data of lived human experience did not go unnoticed by masters of philosophical thought. To begin with, some of the most prominent exponents of a narrow epistemology took their skepticism with a grain of salt. Hume cheerfully admitted that his laborious attempts to establish, through rational ingenuity, the reality of the experienced world, had little bearing on the way he lived: “I dine, I play a game of backgammon, I converse with my friends; and when after three or four hours’ amusement, I would return to these speculations, they appear so cold and strained, and ridiculous, that I cannot find in my heart to enter into them any further.”[10] Of greater consequence to us: Each great rationalistic philosophy was met by the passionate critique of a great adversary. Thus, Descartes was countered by Pascal; Hume had his Newman; Hegel provoked Kierkegaard. While philosophy is hardly a monolithic discipline, it may safely be said that contemporary philosophers are more interested in overcoming the legacy of absolute autonomy, in its various incarnations, than in perpetuating it. 

No reasonable person has ever appropriated, in real life, the peculiar doctrine that sequesters madda from our everyday knowledge (including that derived from Torah). Why then is it still taken for granted among writers on religion? Current philosophy is not at fault. Surely the Torah does not impose upon us allegiance to deficient, outdated views. Only nescience of the history of modern thought can shackle us to a conception that exaggerates unnecessarily the tensions between Torah and hokhmah, and that ends up by subtly promoting, however inadvertently, the misunderstanding that the fundamental principles of Judaism are, God forbid, projections of the human mind. 

To review the last stage of our discussion: Rabbi Parnes is correct to point out that a program of free inquiry cannot be deemed kosher merely because the inquirer is not seeking to forsake Torah. A believing Jew cannot engage in the “objective” investigation of religious truth, if objectivity is defined as a stance of absolute neutrality. As we have seen, such a vantage point is phenomenologically impossible; the reasons that have led many people to take it seriously are philosophically misguided. Because we are accustomed to regard “honest and objective freedom of inquiry” as something good, there are individuals who automatically identify Torah ve-Hokhmah with “honest and objective freedom of inquiry,” without feeling the need to inquire carefully into the accurate meaning of the phrase. Because, as we have seen, the concept of objectivity engenders linguistic muddle, such individuals are likely to admire and emulate precisely the kind of aimless and foundationless rumination the Rambam takes pains to alert us against. For such individuals, Rabbi Parnes’s entire attempt to raise the question comes as quite a surprise; and not a minute too soon, if you ask me. 

III

Many factors go into the formulation and execution of an educational program for the individual, for groups of individuals, for the community as a whole. One factor, not the least important, is the place, if any, to be accorded to studies that introduce thoughts of kefirah. Kaplan and Berger offer impressive illustrations of the manner in which these studies have enriched some of the most profound and most enduring works of Torah, as was freely acknowledged by masters like the Ram­bam and maran ha-Rav Joseph B. Soloveitchik. Many lesser individuals can attest to the value of their liberal arts studies for the attainment of greater insight into Torah. We would also do well to recognize the need for broad knowledge and understanding of human culture in the service of our love for other Jews and even for humankind.[11] 

Furthermore, we must never overlook the fact that, as participants in the modern world, we are affected by it, be it consciously or unwittingly. Our brief excursion into the history of ideas highlighted the powerful attraction of the illusion that humans can take up an observation post above, and independent of, their prior experiences and beliefs. We ought not to indulge our absent-mindedness to the point where we forget that this applies to us too. There is no “view from nowhere.” Yet God has granted us free will. We need not remain captives of the unpropitious spiritual climate in which we find ourselves implicated; but, in order to free ourselves, we must shrewdly map out the terrain from which, and over which, we intend to make our escape. In other words, in order to undertake the slow, unending task of reviewing, revising, and elevating our thoughts and feelings, we must know whence we come and where we are to make our way. As Rabbi Aharon Lichtenstein has observed, the apikoros (heretic), whom we are instructed to rebut, as often as not, is the “apikoros within.”[12] 

In the light of these considerations and others, we approach Rabbi Parnes’s final assertion: “Torah u-Madda can only be viable if it imposes strict limits on freedom of inquiry....”At first blush this statement is nothing but an obvious corollary of our entire discussion. A careful reading, however, reveals one word that invites additional analysis: the adjective strict. If Rabbi Parnes is using the word for emphasis, there is nothing more to discuss with respect to this particular point. It is possible, though, to give the adjective a more ambitious sense. Adopting this interpretation, Rabbi Parnes’s text would advocate the devising of a rigid, clear-cut index of studies permitted and studies forbidden, a kind of Kitzur Shulhan Arukh of Torah u-Madda. 

The formulation of a fixed, mechanical liberal arts canon is one way to settle the problem of halakhic constraints on general studies. In individual cases it may indeed be the best solution. As a sweeping disposition of a central intellectual dimension of our spiritual lives, however, it is the wrong approach. The complexity of the issues involved, both for the individual and for Jewish and American society as a whole, defy the imposition of black and white dicta. The inner life may draw sustenance from wise guidance; it requires, as we have seen, a measure of halakhic constraint and humility. But it is the glory of God that each individual’s inner life presents a portrait of abilities, inclinations and needs that can never be replicated. “Each individual possesses something unique, rare, which is unknown to others; each individual has a unique message to communicate, a special color to add to the communal spectrum.”[13] Hence, the inner life, whether it is manifested in the intellectual adventure, in our relations to our fellow human beings, or in the lonely encounter with God, cannot be completely comprehended and controlled from the outside. 

Much hostility to Torah ve-Hokhmah is accompanied by a tendency to downplay the uniqueness of human inwardness. Many opponents of Torah ve-Hokhmah also seem to be under the impression that doubt can be avoided if we just avoid thinking about questions of theology. This presumes that not thinking is the same as not being affected. R. Bahya b. Asher the Kabbalist, like R. Bahya ibn Pakuda the proponent of philosophy, disagrees. He states, in his Commentary to Avot (2:14): “Know what to answer the apikoros: [Traditional] faith should not suffice for you until you have faith through knowledge and wisdom. For one who has faith through tradition is likely to listen to the deniers.”            

Contemporary contemners of secular education boast of having constructed, in this age of rapid communications, compulsory education, mass media, etc., a more tightly insulated air bubble than was available to fourteenth-century Kabbalists! If the R. Bahyas are right, and their opponents are wrong, we have even more reason to be skeptical of static, mechanical limitations on the individual’s intellectual destiny within the boundaries of Torah. 

The reality and authority of inwardness, as it affects our confrontation with outlooks inimical to Torah, was clearly identified by Rambam. The Mishnah “Know what to answer the apikoros” is immediately succeeded by the dictum “Know before whom you labor.” Commenting on the connection between the two statements, Rambam explains: “Beware that you not take to your heart any of those opinions. And know that the One before Whom you labor knows what is hidden in your heart. This is why he says: Know before Whom you labor, meaning that he should lead his heart to the divine faith.” 

Here I shall also appeal to ma’aseh Rav. As Kaplan and Berger have noted, Rav Soloveitchik openly exhibited his mastery of the philosophical and theological classics of the Greek and Christian traditions. Though aware that not everyone was up to the experience, he had no inhibitions about recommending broad intellectual exposure and in speaking of his enthusiasm for such congenial thinkers as Kierkegaard, Scheler, and Karl Barth. On several occasions I presented to the Rav the difficulties that troubled some of our students confronting the challenge of the liberal arts curriculum, specifically their fear that the humanities include books by objectionable authors whose works it was wrong to read. Each time I entreated the Rav for hard and fast guidelines that I could share with students, he resisted the suggestion, recommending instead that I exercise my own judgment. Moreover, he scoffed at the notion that going to college, or what to study there, can be decided “like a question in Yoreh De’ah,” with the mechanical straightforwardness suitable to “the kashrut of fish.” 

I was privileged to benefit from the Rav’s guidance. Others, no doubt, will recollect similar conversations with him. 

IV

In the course of their demonstration that Rambam’s objections to the wrong kind of inquiry should not be viewed as a rejection of intellectual aspiration, Kaplan and Berger quote from the Guide I:32: 

The intention of these texts set down by the prophets and the Sages is not, however, wholly to close the gate of speculation and to deprive the intellect of the apprehension of things that it is possible to apprehend—as is thought by the ignorant and neglectful, who are pleased to regard their own deficiency and stupidity as perfection and wisdom, and the perfection and the knowledge of others as a deficiency and defection from Law, and who thus “regard darkness as light and light as darkness” (Isa. 5:20). 

The specter of an unspoken fear has haunted many readers of Rabbi Parnes’s essay. Has the position staked out by Rabbi Parnes given aid and comfort to proponents of spiritual and intellectual mediocrity who would palm off their indolence as piety, and are “pleased to regard their own deficiency and stupidity as perfection and wisdom, and the perfection and the knowledge of others as a deficiency and defection from Torah”? Quite possibly. Yet, in the free marketplace of ideas, the harm may well be outweighed by the benefits conferred upon followers of Torah ve-Hokhmah. By virtue of the care and precision of his essay, Rabbi Parnes has set a standard of earnest civility often absent from this kind of interchange. For that reason I, and those who think like me, are no less grateful to him than we are to the cogent and spirited rejoinder by Kaplan and Berger. 

The debate over the Rambam has helped to unmask and clear away certain persistent and popular misconceptions about the character and purpose of serious intellectual activity. And precisely because I, and those who think like me, do not believe in the wisdom of rigid formulas in this area, it is good that we are recalled, from time to time, to the intellectual challenge of self-examination, that we remember, as the Mishnah instructs us, before Whom we labor. 

Notes