Orwell Alive and Well in the Middle East

I am fed up with the Orwellian "Newspeak" in the politics and media coverage of Israel. It was Shabbat that I saw an article in the Jerusalem Post by an author, whose identity I cannot remember, whose point was ultimately the same I am about to make:

In the US and here in Israel, the media arbitrarily label Kadima- Livni as centrist, Likud-Netanyahu as right, and Fatah as moderates. But what makes Livni centrist, Netanyahu a hawk, and Fatah moderate? Oh, and pray tell, what on earth makes Lieberman-Yisrael Beitenu an ultra-right nationalistic party? Also, as the anonymous column noted, "Kahanism" has become a synonym for "racism". But what about Kahanism is racist?

The answer to all of the above is: nothing. Stam ("because"). Because the media said so; Netanyahu isn't any more right than Livni is, and Fatah isn't more moderate than Hamas (cf. PA Officials Reiterate Warning of Renewed 'Armed Struggle'). And Lieberman is arguably more left-wing than Netanyahu, but be that as it may, he's definitely not right-wing, not at all. And of course, there's nothing racist about Rabbi Meir Kahane's philosophy; to declare that we have nothing against Arabs per se, and that our dispute is ONLY with those Arabs who proclaim the desire(s) of the fall and collapse of Israel and/or the massacre of its Jewish inhabitants, and that we have NOTHING against Arabs per se (especially those who accept Israel's existence and the Jews' lives!) - what is possibly racist about this? Nothing whatsoever, of course.

But labels are everything. The media can label the parties as they will, and the populace will subconsciously not notice the difference. My mother has noted that the West Bank has gone, subtly and slowly, from being the "Disputed Territories", to the "Occupied Territories". What changed in the meantime, to change the conflict from a two-sided dispute of equals to a one-sided occupation of one by the other? Nothing changed physically; only the terminology did, quite arbitrarily.

As for Kahane, it's interesting that if America's response to Japan is any indication, were (hypothetically) Mexico to today launch rockets at Texas (as the Arabs are at Sderot), America would respond in a FAR more racist manner than Kahane ever proposed against the Arabs. On the other hand, were an American president to paraphrase Kahane and say, "I have nothing against Mexicans per se; I only oppose those American Mexicans who sympathize with Mexico, but those Mexicans who are loyal to America, we have no issue with them" (as Kahane proposed regarding Arabs), this president would be regarded as having uttered utterly banal and inane words. Either America would respond to American Mexicans as America did to Japanese Americans in WWII (far in excess of what Kahane proposed regarding Arabs), or, alternatively, the president's above words (paraphrasing Kahane's policy towards Arabs) would be taken as self-evident; our only enemy is with those Americans who sympathize with the enemy. But Kahane says EXACTLY the same thing, and he's labeled as a terrorist and a racist. Newspeak is alive and well.

My mother has told me that when she first heard of Kahane, she heard he was a nutjob wacko, and she said, she had no time to learn about one more. But years later, she heard of Moshe Feiglin, and loved his rhetoric, realizing that he is exactly what Israel needs, and that he is the paragon of clear and moderate and level-headed thought. Not long after that, she started hearing of comparisons between Feiglin and Kahane, the former and the latter being allegedly alike. She was thoroughly confused, she said; Feiglin makes so much sense, and Kahane is a wacko - what's the comparison??!! Finally, she read Kahane's actual words and philosophy, and realized that indeed, he is just like Feiglin, and in fact, there is nothing at all racist or wacko about him! It was all defamatory terminology.

But, there's hope: anyone remember the appendix to 1948, being a scholarly historical study of Newspeak? Evidently, the totalitarian Orwellian world eventually broke down, and Newspeak with it. If so, someday, the Israeli Newspeak (both within Israel and regarding Israel by those without) will too end. Ihud haLeumi, Manhigut Yehudit (Feiglin), it'll happen. I may not be an Asharite Mutakallimun, but I can too be fatalistic.

I just wish I knew who wrote the column I was inspired by. However, I saw that Caroline Glick makes a similar point, in "Entrapping Netanyahu". I do not know where her political allegiances lie, and for all I know, she herself considers Kahane to be racist, etc., but her words suit my purpose; just realize that I may be using her to support a point she herself may not be. Now, she says there:

Second, since Hamas's electoral victory in January 2006, the outgoing government accepted the false narrative that the Palestinian people in Gaza, who freely voted Hamas into power and have supported its regime ever since, bear no responsibility for the consequences of their actions. This false distinction between Hamas's supporters and Hamas tied Israel's hands each time it was compelled to defend itself against Hamas's aggression. After all, if Gazans are all innocent, then Israel's primary responsibility should be to make sure that they are safe. And since its counterterror operations necessarily place them at risk, those operations are fair game for international condemnation.

...

Finally, through its unlimited support for Fatah, the outgoing government has made it enormously difficult for the incoming government to explain its objections to the Obama administration's policies, either to the Israeli people or to the Americans themselves. By supporting Fatah, the Olmert-Livni-Barak government set up a false distinction between supposed moderates and supposed extremists. That distinction ignored and so legitimized Fatah's continued involvement in terrorism, its political war against Israel and its refusal to accept Israel's right to exist.

If Fatah is legitimate despite its bad behavior and bellicose ideology, then two things must be true. First, abstaining from terror can no longer be viewed as a precondition for receiving international legitimacy. And second, there is no reason not to accept Hamas. Based on the latter conclusion, many European leaders and Israeli leftists now openly call for conducting negotiations with Hamas. And based on the former conclusion, the Obama administration feels comfortable escalating its demands that Israel give land, security powers and money to Fatah, even as it unifies its forces with Hamas and so expands Hamas's power from Gaza to Judea and Samaria.

Due to the Olmert-Livni-Barak government's legacy, when it enters office the Netanyahu government will lack the vocabulary it needs to abandon Israel's current self-defeating course with the Palestinians and defend its actions to the international community in the face of the Obama administration's use of dishonest terms like "peace processes" and "moderates" and "humanitarian aid" to constrain Israel's ability to defend itself. To surmount these challenges, Netanyahu must move immediately to change the terms of debate on the Palestinian issue.

On G-d's Fatherhood and Religious Fundamentalism

I've thought often about the following, and as it really does trouble me deeply, I wonder if anyone's had similar thoughts.

We go through life, confident that our course is the best and proper one, or at least, recognizing what the proper course is, and trying our best to adhere to it. Hopefully, we do successfully thereto, but at least, we theoretically recognize what we ought to be doing.

But what is our guarantee? How often might it be, that one wrong word to another, one wrong action; one bit of wrong advice, or even the absence of the proper advice; one deed which casts "religion" in the wrong light, whether that turns others from "religion" per se, or misleads the honest seeker who has chosen you as his example (at that moment)? One might go through his entire life, oblivious to the the events of that one day that totally set all his life awry from that day forth. Blithely he lives, ignorant to the destruction he has wrought.

Or even more: what if one's entire course is in error? One conducts his life, confident that he is adhering, at least more or less, to what is proper, or at least, that he recognizes what he ought to be doing. But perhaps even this is in error? Perhaps one is even more wrong than right; perhaps he has gotten everything wrong from the outset.

It is all this which leads me to notice ever more G-d's silence. A parent seeks to guide his or her children, to provide general guidance and direction without actually dictating to the child. Only by letting the child fall, and learn himself to walk, will the child learn independence, and grow to be a capable adult. (For an excellent discussion of this, vis. a vis. G-d's being our Father, see Rabbi Dr. Jonathan Sacks, "Faith as Protest", Conversations Issue 2 (Autumn 2008/5769), excerpted from his To Heal the World.)

But G-d has gone further than this. At least with parents, one receives such general appreciation of their general attitude and recognition of you. A parent may seek to loosen the reigns over time, but one always has the option of seeking evaluation; perhaps no less than when I was young, I still seek the validation of my parents - I'd like them to see and acknowledge my accomplishments, for me to see that they care. Even just to see a nod of approval, to hear a word of encouragement, I know that I'm still somehow doing right in their eyes. I cannot live my life totally according to them, and neither do they desire this. But at least, when I need it, they are but a step away from me, for me to seek approval and validation. It is this which one cannot receive from G-d.

All of one's life, one has no way of knowing how He feels about you. One may be the most splendid paragon of justice and piety, or the darkest exemplar of hypocrisy and evil; either way, nary a word shall be heard from Him. How is one to know if He approves? How is one to know whether one's life course is pleasing in His eyes?

Now, to be sure, He must withhold some contact. Perhaps one reason we no longer have prophecy today, is that He seeks to loosen the reigns, to grant us ever-growing independence as the centuries and millenia pass. But all the same, there's something to be said for G-d's granting prophecy to those whose certainty in Him and certitude in the imperative of following Him, will not be affected by the revelation. That is, were G-d to reveal Himself to the criminal who does not even seek Him, then He will be revoking free will. But for those of us who already seek Him, who already acknowledge that we ought to be following Him, but only not know how, why does He withhold Himself? In the Kuzari, the king is visited by angel who tells him, "G-d finds your intentions pleasing, but your actions not." For one such as him, this revelation did not affect his free will; he already sought the pious and praiseworthy path, and G-d only helped him find that which he already sought; no free will was thereby stolen. Why are we not availed of what the Kuzari was?

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All this leads me to another topic. When one first becomes more religious, he immediately has an overpowering desire to "spread the good news". In some way, this is actually altruistic; he has found the truth, he has found what is beneficial, and he cannot withhold this benefit from others.

But on the other hand, this is, in some way, nothing sort of parochial and haughty self-worship. The same dark forces of the soul which give rise to racism and discrimination, viz. the need to aggrandize oneself and his companions, and demonize the "other", for the sake of self-confidence and group cohesion, these same dark forces give rise to religious fundamentalism.

One is urged by a sinister compulsion to heap scorn and abuse on the other, to self-righteously proclaim not only that one's own path is the correct one, but that all others are criminals for not knowing this themselves, for their not recognizing that your path is the truth. Verily, what gives rise to religious fundamentalism is not so different than what fuels the KKK or Communist totalitarianism.

It is therefore, of course, most tragic that many newly religious individuals immediately succumb to this illness. But with G-d's help, one soon realizes how diseased his soul is by all this. One realizes that in all his religious propagandizing, he is but become the demon which he professes to abhor, feeding into the darkness which he has pledged is his desire to eradicate from earth. One realizes that religious fundamentalism is the antithesis of religion.

Moreover, in light of the doubts which one but must perforce have, how can one be so sure of his own path, anyway? If G-d never offers validation, never gives a nod of His evaluation, can one really be so sure that he is correct? And even if he is certain of his correctness, can he really blame the other for not being so certain of the other's path?

I was recently talking to a woman who is converting Conservative. Now, to be sure, I disapprove of Conservative Judaism. But can I really demonstrate satisfactorily and conclusively that Orthodoxy is true? And even if I can, have I? Based on my conduct, and whatever intellectual proofs I may be able to muster, do I really have any right to expect that she ought to be convinced by me? If she is troubled, for example, by the (alleged) lack of sexual equality in Orthodoxy, do I have anything satisfactory to say on the subject? And can I honestly say that I am any less troubled than she is? If so, then what in G-d's name gives me the right to cast any judgment upon her?

One thus realizes that religious fundamentalism is but the result of misanthropic hatred of the "other", on the one hand, and of obliviousness regarding one's own intellectual ignorance. What room, then, can there be for any religious fundamentalism?

All the same, has this disease been cleansed from my own soul? Not by a long shot.

Postscript: A few months after writing the above, I saw the following apposite passage in Rabbi Yom Tov Schwarz's Eyes to See (http://www.urimpublications.com/Merchant2/merchant.mv?Screen=PROD&Store_Code=UP&Product_Code=Eyes", pp. 238f:

In a lengthy exposition in Derech Mitzvosechah on the commandment "You shall not kindle a fire [on Shabbat - M. M.]," the Tzemach Tzedek (Acharon) of blessed memory makes the following illuminating remarks regarding this matter [of hating sinners - M. M.]:

Certain people draw their principal life force by executing harsh judgment against others. We can see this in a very tangible way: when people of this ilk encounter individuals who are transgressors, they immediately become very heated. They are filled with wrath and driven to anger to punish them and beat them with cruel and murderous blows; they even insist on doing so with their own hands. They will not rest or calm down until they have consummated their wicked deeds against them, because their own inner nature is essentially evil! Therefore, the evil that they perpetrate against others infuses their lives with vitality and endurance; without it, they would have no life at all. For them, an opportunity to commit murderous acts revitalizes their soul, for this is their vital force. And though they disguise their true motivation in a cloak of righteous indignation - for the object of their wrath had committed a sin - there is no truth to this whatsoever. For in reality, G-d is full of compassion and kindness.... Their behavior stems from the evil temperament of their own souls, which bears the mark of harsh judgments, seeking only to harm and punish others.

Where Orthodoxy is Failing

At Hirhurim, there is a discussion of Hebrew illiteracy even in Orthodox yeshiva high school graduates - "The Illiteracy Epidemic: A Response", by Rabbi Shalom Z. Berger, Ed.D.

In the comments Pierre said,

This is terrifying to me beyond belief. Out of BT yeshivot, I talked with people of the functional illiteracy I left these institutions with. Unbelief was the general response; weren't these the same institutions with the Kiruv Kerovim institutions, the great BT-making rabbis of 20 years ago?...here I hear about mainline institutions that cannot even adequately teach students Hebrew - only creating more producers and consumers of behaviors.

Pierre was speaking about Hebrew literacy and education per se, but I'm reminded of something else:

The greatest problem in Orthodoxy is this teaching of uncritical behaviorism, creating students who can do nothing more than parrot what their rabbis says.

We aren't selling a religion based on critical thought, based on the understanding that Judaism is a "religious civilization", on par with all other civilizations. Mordechai Kaplan may have been wrong, but as Rav Kook says, every idea has some divine truth in it. If Judaism is part of world civilization, if Hashem gave us a Torah that deals with the same issues all nations do, dealing with the same societal and personal issues that all people do, then our attitude towards Torah will be totally different. Independent and courageous thought, critical thinking, analysis and investigation of the world beyond our four cubits, will suddenly be more explicable. In a more prosaic way, the idea that aggadot are not dogmas, won't be seen as so heretical, because we'll realize that Hazal were philosophers, using the same basic thought processes as all humans do, albeit with an extra Sinaitic "seed-crystal" to serve as a skeleton for their thought; but the fleshing-out process was a HUMAN one.

This, I think, is exactly what Rav Hirsch did with Mensch-Yisroel אתם קרואים אדם. Reading Rav Hirsch's "Religion Allied to Progress" and "Judaism Up-to-Date" / "The Jew and His Time", one realizes that he's dealing with a totally different conception of Judaism. It doesn't just come down to whether you can go to university; it's an entirely different conception of what it means to be Jewish. To refer to Rav Hirsch as being "Orthodox" like Haredi Judaism today, is to do an injustice to one of the two; Rav Hirsch is barely more similar to Haredism than he was to Reformism. In fact, in Nineteen Letters, Rav Hirsch criticizes the old-world religious hardliners more stringently than he criticizes Reform!

Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits too. Now, many will of course disagree with where some of his philosophies led to, in halacha. But in principle, Rabbi Berkovits's underlying motivation was as expressed by his son, Rabbi Dov Berkovits:

I think it safe to say that Eliezer Berkovits used the well-worn phrase “halachic Judaism” in two revolutionary ways. First, though springing from the fundamental commitments of Orthodoxy, halachic Judaism ac­cording to Berkovits refers to a non-denominational, or better, a post-denominational, Judaism whose ultimate concern is not with ideology, or even theology, but with the living demands of the dynamic condition of the Jewish people. Second, though deeply rooted in the wisdom of the Tora, the central aim of halachic Judaism is not to formulate a defensive, traditionalist posture for the protection of Tora from life, but rather to be a formative tool for the creative fashioning of human realities.

But what do we have instead of all this? We have a Judaism that forgoes all critical thought, all introspection on how to affect this temporal world, how to influence history and society. Instead, we focus on how to keep mitzvot in all their technical detail, divorced from all philosophy of their meaning. This is "frumkeit", and it is EXACTLY what Rav Hirsch, in Nineteen Letters, says led to Reform. Reform, says Rav Hirsch, is understandable and reasonable (still wrong, however), when we realize what the Orthodox Jews were up to - says Rav Hirsch, they (the Orthodox) turned Orthodoxy into a dessicated and mummified corpse, devoid of all life, all vitality, all meaning.

Reporting and Prosecuting Jewish Criminals

Regarding Rabbi J. Simcha Cohen's "Reporting and Prosecuting Jewish Criminals: Halakhic Concerns", in Conversations Issue 3 (Winter 2009/5769):

Rabbi Cohen, marshaling a variety of arguments, shows that reporting Jewish criminals to the non-Jewish authorities is a mandatory deed by any religious Jew. (I find it interesting that Rabbi Cohen never mentions whether the non-religious courts in Israel are halachically considered to be Jewish or non-Jewish, vis a vis the prohibition of mesira. I assume that they are non-Jewish, and that "Jewish" really means "halakhic"; to the earlier authorities, the concept of a non-religious Jewish court would have been inconceivable, and I assume that they would have considered Israeli courts to be non-Jewish, had the notion ever occurred to them.)

Rabbi Cohen prefers to defend mesira on the grounds of hillul hashem: to be silent about Jewish criminals will send the message that the religious Jewish community is not concerned about criminals in its midst. However, though this argument is valid, I'd personally be reticent to depend on it as the primary argument. If, in fact, we are truly not intrinsically concerned about Jewish crimes against non-Jews, then indeed, hillul hashem is our only argument; it is not that the Jew really deserves to be turned over to the secular authorities, but rather, for the sake of appearances, mishum eiva, we must turn him over. If this is one's view of gentiles, then this view will not meet with any opposition. Rabbi Cohen never himself implies as much, and I am not attributing this opinion to him, but nevertheless, it appears to me to be the logical implication of hillul hashem: it is not intrinsically problematic, and but for the fact that non-Jews will find out, there'd be no issue. In fact, Rabbi Cohen raises the possibility that in some circumstances, if non-Jews will indeed never find out, then there is no issue of hillul hashem, and no permission to violate mesira. Rabbi Cohen rejects this, however, saying that inevitably, the truth will become known, one way or another. Apparently, there is no intrinsic immorality of not informing the secular authorities, and so hillul hashem, on the fear (inevitability) of non-Jews finding out, is Rabbi Cohen's preferred (though not only) argument. I am sure Rabbi Cohen did not intend any disparagement of non-Jews in this, but to me, the logical conclusion (which I am sure Rabbi Cohen has not come to) is that but for the non-Jews finding out and causing a scandal, we have no moral qualms about not informing them of Jewish crimes.

But if one has a different view of non-Jews, then this approach will utterly untenable. And given that "all the gedolim", including Rabbi Hirsch, Rabbi Kook, Rabbi Yehiel Yaakov Weinberg, Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, Rabbi Yitzhak Herzog, and Rabbi Yosef Eliyahu Henkin, all paskened Meiri as halacha l'maaseh (see Rabbi Dr. David Berger, "Jews, Gentiles, and the Modern Egalitarian Ethos: Some Tentative Thoughts", in Formulating Responses in an Egalitarian Age, ed. by Marc Stern, Lanham, 2005, pp. 83-108.), this alternative view of the gentile is clearly the correct one. It must be that to avoid punishing the Jew's crimes against the gentile, is intrinsically unethical, regardless of whether the non-Jews will ever find out, regardless of any hillul hashem.

Rabbi Cohen brings the Arukh HaShulhan (Hoshen Mishpat 388:7) as saying that mesira is prohibited only in such governments as are not governed by the rule of law; the Arukh HaShulhan offers (then-)contemporary Britain as an example, and presumably, all contemporary Western democracies would likewise qualify. However, Rabbi Cohen is obviously reluctant to rely on this ruling: he states later, "[U]nless one held the position of the Arukh HaShulhan - that the concept of mesira was not applicable in democratic societies - there does not appear to be any halakhic permission to report to the police and the secular government a crime that already took place [i.e. and the only purpose is to punish punitively; elsewhere, we saw from Rabbi Cohen that the Shakh as holding that to prevent future abuse, mesira is permitted, even in totalitarian non-rule-of-law societies]..." I am puzzled by Rabbi Cohen's reluctance; to me, this ruling is verily a G-dsend.

It seems to me personally, that based on the concept of "Mensch-Yisroel", "אתם קרואים אדם" (see: (1) Rabbi Shelomo Danziger,“Rav S. R. Hirsch – His תורה עם דרך ארץ Ideology”, in מורשת צבי The Living Hirschian Legacy. New York/Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1988.; (2) Rabbi Shimon Schwab, Elu v'Elu – These and Those, New York: Feldheim, 1966.; (3) Rabbi Dr. Mendel Hirsch, “Humanism and Judaism”, in Fundamentals of Judaism, ed. Jacob Breuer, New York: Feldheim.; (4) Rabbi Yuval Cherlow, "The Torah and the Natural Ways of the World, Conversations, Issue 3, Winter 2009/5769), a non-Jewish court is, despite our general (but erroneous, as far as I can determine) understanding to the contrary, still applicable to a Jew. That is, Jews are still humans, and Jewish citizens of a non-Jewish society are still accountable to the local non-Jewish court, just as all human citizens of that locale are. (And cf. Rabbi Mayer Schiller, "The Forgotten Humanism of Rabbi Samson Raphael Hirsch", regarding the patriotism a Jew ought feel towards his host non-Jewish society.) True, Jews received a special status at Sinai, but the non-Jewish courts were not affected by that revelation, and they lost none of their authority. I cannot conceive then, of any reason why, from the ikkar din, why a non-Jewish court would not have jurisdiction over a Jew. Even if the non-Jewish court will impose a more severe punishment than halakha would dictate (a topic that Rabbi Cohen deals with), the fact is that non-Jewish courts have a mandate to impose whatever punishment is deemed proper, even up to and including death (Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, Rabbi J. David Bleich, Rabbi Moshe Feinstein, Rabbi Yoav Yehoshua's Chelkat Yoav Tanyana 14, all interpreting the Talmudic death sentence for a Noachide, not as a mandate, but as a permission; see http://www.wikinoah.org/index.php/Capital_Punishment_in_Noahide_law). If so, our concern would not be that the Jew is punished beyond halacha, but rather, that he is punished beyond the rule of law. That is, if Jewish law determines that theft is punished by double-restitution, while the non-Jewish courts determine that imprisonment is necessary, for some legitimate reason that qualifies as equitable "rule of law", I cannot see why Jewish law would protest. Surely, we must protest, with Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz, Rabbi Isidore Epstein, and Rabbi Ahron Soloveichik, the imposition of death for theft (such as was done by British courts, even for pittances), but this because it is immoral and against equitable "rule of law", not because it violates halakhah per se. If so, then the Arukh HaShulhan has amply solved our dilemma: so long as the non-Jewish court is governed by equitable rule of law, then the principle of mesira does not apply at all, whatsoever, end of story.

I will go further. So far, we might suppose that all my words apply only when the beit din lacks jurisdiction to punish; even if the non-Jewish court is governed by equitable rule of law, we'd still prefer, of course, to punish by what halakha dictates; only because the beit din lacks power, however, do we reluctantly (but permissibly) turn to the non-Jewish courts. But I wish to question this assumption, at least in one case: what of when a non-Jew is party to the proceedings, i.e. we are dealing with a Jewish criminal who has harmed his gentile victim? Obviously, when two Jews are involved, we'd prefer to turn to the beit din, and only because the beit din lacks power, do we utilize the Arukh HaShulhan's permission. But what about when a non-Jew is involved? It seems to me, that if the beit din does in fact have power, and we turn to the beit din to punish, this is unfair to the non-Jewish party. The non-Jew has no relevance to a Jewish court (except in Eretz Yisrael, where this non-Jew will be a ger toshav, and liable to the rulings of a beit din, bimheira b'yameinu), and it is unfair to bring him to Jewish court. In other words, it seems to me, that when a non-Jew is involved, and the non-Jewish court is an equitable one following the rule of law, it is preferable that we utilize the non-Jewish court, even were the beit din to have power in this instance! The non-Jewish court at least has some relevancy to the Jew, being that the Jew is a human; but since the reverse is not true, a beit din has no relevancy to a non-Jew, except where the locale is a Jewish one, and the Jewish court is itself the dina d'malchuta dina.

I will go even further. We know, of course, that the Talmud and Midrashim extensively debate the Noahide laws. It has long appeared to me, however, that this is all theoretical, except for a ger toshav who has pledged allegiance to the Jewish courts. We know that for a Jew, regardless of what G-d actually said in His revelation, the Torah "is not in Heaven", and we must decide by "the court that will be in that generation". However, a non-Jew has no such obligation. If G-d said X to Noah regarding the Noahide laws, and the Jewish authorities interpret this as meaning Y, only a Jew, not a non-Jew, is obligated to hold by the Jewish authority's declaration of Y; the non-Jew may for himself decide what G-d meant by X. So if, for example, we (the Jews) interpret G-d's command to Noah to refer to ever min HaHai, but the Noahide interprets this k'fshuto as forbidding the consumption of blood per se, I cannot imagine why this non-Jew cannot follow his own interpretation of the law. After all, he is not obligated to follow the rabbis when they declare right to be left and left to be right; for him, it is "in Heaven", or, if "it is not in Heaven", it is not in the rabbis' power either, as far as he is concerned. I realize why words will strike many as utterly radical, even almost heretical. I assume that my understanding is one that has come from academically analyzing Jewish law from the outside, rather than appreciating it from the inside, as most authorities have done historically. However, from the high amount of influence I've had from Rabbi Moshe Shmuel Glasner (see an abridged translation of his work on the Oral Law, by Rabbi Dr. Yaakov Elman, "Rabbi Moses Samuel Glasner: The Oral Torah", Tradition 25(3), Spring 1991, pp. 63-69), Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits (Rabbi Glasner's son's student), and Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein (see my "Rabbi Dr. Isidore Epstein on the Oral Law"), this is the truth as it appears to me.

On Pilgeshut

For those who advocate pilgeshut (concubinage): be it technically legal though it may, nevertheless, if there's any truth to what Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits says in "A Jewish Sexual Ethics" (in Crisis and Faith, and recently reprinted in Essential Essays on Judaism, ed. Hazony; declared by Rabbi Shalom Carmy as the best essay on the subject), then pilgeshut could barely be more wrong.

I apparently once wrote an essay about this. It is only in draft stage (I had forgotten I wrote it!), but here it anyway. Perhaps it will suffice for now.

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It has been suggested that, in light of the need for sexual outlet felt by today's youth, the pilegesh is a possible solution. The two young individuals would enjoy a halachically sanctioned union without the permanence and binding nature of a marriage.

This suggestion, however, betrays a crucial misappreciation for Jewish sexual ethics. As Rabbi Eliezer Berkovits shows in his “A Jewish Sexual Ethics”1 the fundamental principle of Judaism's sexual ethic is: personalization.

Christianity erred in repressing and condemning the body, urging man to wholly spiritualize himself and suppress those bodily urges. Modern scientific atheism, on the other hand, declares man is but an animal, albeit a more intelligent one; therefore, he is to wholly embrace his animalism and physicality. But the truth is as Judaism declares – man is both body and soul, physical and spiritual, in an intertwined interrelated “biopsychic”, “psychosomatic” unity. The physical is to be embraced, but with appreciation of and upliftment into, the human-spiritual sphere of the personal. It is to be redeemed from animalistic impersonality and sanctified into a human-to-human relationship of the personal, in all its human biopsychic/psychosomatic fullness. This is the reason that to engage in relations with one's spouse is to “know” him or her – for sexual relations are to be the summit of the intimate human-to-human relationship.

And why precisely marriage? Because only by tying a knot that cannot be undone on a momentary whim, only by establishing a link that cannot be casually made undone, is thereby indicated a confidence, a faith, a commitment bespeaking true personalization. Only by marriage, which is (halachically) quite easy to establish but very difficult to terminate, is such confidence in the other, commitment to the long-term, such “personalization”, thereby indicated.

To suggest then, a halachically sanctioned non-marital union is to fundamentally miss the point. For one, Ramban declared that such unions will more likely than not degrade into gross animalistic sexual lust; it is unlikely that the union will remain a clean pristine morally elevated one. Moreover, Ramban further said that it is possible to be a sinner with the permission of the Torah – to utilize technicalities to permit a non-sanctified union (that is the meaning, after all, of the kiddushin that pilgeshut lacks!), is to seek a heter to engage in animalistic non-personalized sexual union under the aegis of the Torah!

But most importantly, to pursue pilgeshut and dispense with kiddushin, indicates a reticence to establish a firm enduring bond. Apprehensive of the possible future desire to depart from one another, and unwilling to tie so secure a bond as marriage, concubinage is resorted to, being a bond but not so inviolable a bond, not so enduring and firm as marriage. But if so, what does this say of the “personalization” present in this relationship?

Hashem, in His Torah, did not declare, as a meaningless chok, that we are to engage in sexual relations only under marriage. It was with profound appreciation of the meaning of sexual relations, of the deep import of its intimacy of “knowledge” of the other that it fosters, of the vital need for “personalization” via long-term commitment that cannot be terminated on a momentary impulse, that He commanded thus, that He commanded the marital bond. To seek a heter to dispense with this, is to fundamentally misappreciate His intent, and to seek to violate the spirit of the law while blithely upholding its now-vacuous letter. True, perhaps technically no law has been broken, but woe to the one who has done a sin with the permission of the Torah.

You are called "Man" - Are only Jews humans?

In Yevamot 61a, it is said אתה קוראים אדם "You [i.e. Jewry] are called 'Man'". Does this mean that gentiles are sub-human, G-d forbid?

At the Seforim Blog, Professor Marc B. Shapiro, "Thoughts on "Confrontation" and Sundry Matters Part II", in the comments section:

Yirm. | 01.29.09 - 3:56 pm:

Regarding the developing morality, see Rabbi Israel Liphshitz (1782- 1861) relating to the statement "only Jews are called Adam" (Talmud Yevamot 61a).The quote is from Liphshitz’ commentary on tractate Avot (3:14);

"This statement is indeed difficult to understand, after all, all humans are created in the image of God and the admirable among the nations have a portion in the world-to–come, so why are they not considered Adam?

What seems to me is that if we analyze the status of the Children of Israel vis-à-vis the status of the Nations, we will see a difference. When the Israelites were in Egypt, all of humanity, including Israel, were like orphans traveling in the dark, without knowledge of God. Moses himself had to ask God how to introduce the latter to children of Israel. Even after the miracles of the Exodus and the crossing of the Red Sea the nation was still attached to idols. Clearly the Jewish nation at the time was contaminated from the filth of idolatry no less than the Egyptians. They were not aware of their responsibility towards God or one another or even to themselves. This condition was prevalent among all the nations of the time, even among the wisest of them. They worshiped animals and prayed to plants, trees and mountains as if they were deities. They also offered their own children as sacrifices. God had mercy on humanity and remembered his pact with Abraham his servant, and chose his descendants as priests and educators to humanity. Thus God appeared in Egypt, a land of wisdom at that time and through plagues and wonders opened the eyes of the children of Israel and they saw who is actually running the world. The children of Israel continued to gain knowledge of God as they crossed the sea and then with the public appearance at Mount Sinai. At Sinai amidst the fire, darkness, clouds, and fog, He taught them his commandments, ordinances, and Torah that includes all human obligations. All that was taught to the nation did not come to them through their intellectual research but rather through a revelation.

However this was not so regarding the other nations. As the children of Israel were becoming closer to God humanity were still in a state of spiritual slumber. All of the nations’ future accomplishments came through their own intellect, and we can definitely say that they made themselves. Since many of their values and human responsibilities they did learn from Israel and many other laws they learnt naturally until eventually the light of enlightenment shined upon them. As a result if we would analyze the lowest of the nations of today he would be better than the best of the nations of the past. So over time and through effort the nations of the world made themselves.

The result is that both the children of Israel and the Nations of the world have an attribute that the other lacks. The attribute that the nations have is that they, through free will and by their own means, made themselves. This clearly is a quality that the children of Israel are lacking since their knowledge comes from the revelation and only in the merit of their forefathers. However the children of Israel do have a feature that the nations do not. Since revelation is what guided the former, there are many concepts the human mind cannot obtain through reason. Thus the nations will not accept them since they cannot be rationalized. In addition, given that their enlightenment came through reason, the nations that have not opened their eyes remain contaminated with the old pagan philosophies. The children of Israel on the other hand are committed to all the teachings of the Torah, even the ones that are beyond comprehension. Therefore the children of Israel are comparable to Adam. All humans when they appear in this world are lacking intellect until their minds develop. Adam on the other hand was different. The moment he gained the spirit of God he was a knowledgeable being with an understanding of his responsibilities. The children of Israel are analogous to Adam not because they are superior but rather since their intellect came from a revelation and not by a natural process. As a result, Jews being called Adam is not a compliment but rather testifies that their accomplishments come from the hand of God."

Another approach:
Rabbi Shimon Schwab writes (“Elu v'Elu – These and Those”, New York: Feldheim, 1966) that Rav Hirsch's philosophy

...starts out from the premise that the Torah must rule over all manifestations of human life. The earth and the fullness thereof are created for man, and the ideal man at this his highest potential is what Rabbi S. R. Hirsch זצ"ל calls “Mensch – Yisroel,” or as the Sages formulated it: אתה קרואים אדם [You are called 'Man'].

The divine task handed to Adam, namely to control the earth according to the will of the Creator [i.e. פרו ורבו ומלאו את הארץ וכבשה - "Be fruitful and multiply, fill the earth and subdue it"], applies to all men in general, but first and foremost[!!] to Yisroel. We were chosen and separated from the nations of the world to become G-d's "first-born son", whose historic function shall be to lead all the other "children" to their Heavenly Father. The ultimate goal of Judaism: לעשות רצון אבינו שבשים therefore will become the ideal of all mankind in G-d's own time. To this end Yisroel was constituted – not into a sect or a brotherhood, but into a nation established in its own land and endowed with all the manifestations of statehood.

There exists nothing truly human anywhere outside the scope of the Divine Teaching. All is contained within the Torah and subject to its application. Nothing which the Creator has fashioned could escape the attention and the concern of the revealed Will of the Divine Lawgiver. The "four squares of Halacha" encompass the whole wide world, as the Sages formulated it: אין לו להקב"ה בעולמו אלא ד' אמות של הלכה בלבד.2
This nation with all its material endeavor, and all of its intellectual strivings, is to become ממלכת כהנים ודגוי קדוש, a Divinely controlled organism – unlike all other political, cultural and economical entities, and subject only to the sovereign rule of the Torah. The Torah nation is to blaze the trail for all other nations to follow towards the universal messianic goal of free man's total submission to the absolute Will of the Almighty.

For more on the fact that Jew is but a type of human, see Rabbi Shelomo Danziger's "Rav S. R. Hirsch – His תורה עם דרך ארץ Ideology", in מורשת צבי The Living Hirschian Legacy. New York/Jerusalem: Feldheim, 1988.

But for now, note Rabbi Schwab's first paragraph, quoted above:

...starts out from the premise that the Torah must rule over all manifestations of human life. The earth and the fullness thereof are created for man, and the ideal man at this his highest potential is what Rabbi S. R. Hirsch זצ"ל calls "Mensch – Yisroel," or as the Sages formulated it: אתה קרואים אדם [You are called "Man"].

According to this, the statement "You are called 'Man'" does not mean "You alone, to the exclusion of gentiles, are called 'Man'", but rather, it means "You too, even you, are called 'Man'".

In other words, does אתם קרואים אדם "You are called 'Man'", mean
--- רק אתם קרואים אדם "Only you are called 'Man'", or
--- אף/גם אתם קרואים אדם "Even/also you are called 'Man'"?

Rabbi Schwab takes the second of the two; rather than distinguishing Jew from gentile, this statement rather strengthens the bond between Jew and gentile; both are "Man"! Whatever is true of the gentile, of humanity, be it art, civilization, science, etc. is true of the Jew as well! A Jew is simply a type of gentile. Lest we forget this, lest we overly distinguish between Jew and gentile, Hazal reminded us: "You, yes you, even you, are still called 'Man'".

Rav Hirsch on Universalism

I love Rav Hirsch. So let's quote him on the subject of how a Jew is to view a gentile. For other sources corroborating Rav Hirsch's stance, see my Shitat haMeiri: Universalism for Orthodox Judaism

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(1) "Religion Allied to Progress":
"...Judaism is not a religion, the synagogue is not a church, and the rabbi is not a priest. Judaism is not a mere adjunct to life: it comprises all of life. To be a Jew is not a mere part, it is the sum total of our task in life. To be a Jew in the synagogue and the kitchen, in the field and the warehouse, in the office and the pulpit, as father and mother, as servant and master, as man and as citizen, with one's thoughts, in word and in deed, in enjoyment and privation, with the needle and the graving-tool, with the pen and the chisel--that is what it means to be a Jew. An entire life supported by the Divine Idea and lived and brought to fulfillment according to the Divine Will.

"The more, indeed, Judaism comprises the whole of man and extends its declared mission to the salvation of the whole of mankind, the less it is possible to confine its outlook to the four cubits of a synagogue and the four walls of a study. The more the Jew is a Jew, the more universalist will his views and aspirations be, the less aloof... will he be from anything that is noble and good, true and upright, in art or science, in culture or education; the more joyfully will he applaud whenever he sees truth and justice and peace and the ennoblement of man prevail and become dominant in human society: the more joyfully will he seize every opportunity to give proof of his mission as a Jew, the task of his Judaism, on new and untrodden ground; the more joyfully will he devote himself to all true progress in civilisation and culture--provided, that is, provided, that is, that he will not only not have to sacrifice his Judaism but will also be able to bring it to more perfect fulfilment. He will ever desire progress, but only in alliance with religion. He will not want to accomplish anything that he cannot accomplish as a Jew. Any step which takes him away from Judaism is not for him a step forward, is not progress. He exercises this self-control without a pang, for he does not wish to accomplish his own will on earth but labours in the service of God. He knows that wherever the Ark of his God does not march ahead of him he is not accompanied by the pillar of the fire of His light or the pillar of the cloud of His grace."

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(2) "Judaism Up to Date" / "The Jew and His Time"

"From the very beginning, G-d placed Judaism and with it its adherents in opposition to the age. For thousands of years Judaism was the only protest against against a completely pagan world. And if this opposition diminished from century to century, this was not because Judaism altered itself to suit the non-Jewish conditions at any give time [this essay is a polemic against religious reform], but because more and more seeds of the Jewish spirit, sparks from the Jewish word of G-d, found a lodgment in the bosom of the non-Jewish world, and more and more the Jewish word of G-d fulfilled its silent mission on earth.

...

"No doctrine is so well qualified as Judaism to fill its adherents with the most all-embracing love, to implant in them a spirit and a heart to which nothing human on the whole earth is alien and which can participate most warmly and most openly in all human suffering and human well-being. It is the Jews who are quick to see in the darkest episodes of history the march of a Divine purpose, who at the grave of the most abandoned sinner are ready to plant the banner of hope for a resurrection and return to G-d, and whose whole strength lies in the conviction that all men are journeying with them towards a kingdom of G-d on earth in which truth and love, justice and salvation will everywhere dwell.

"Consider Abraham, the first and most isolated Jew on earth. Was ever anyone so isolated? Singe and alone with G-d on earth, single and alone in conflict with the whole of his age. What a heart did he bear in his bosom, full of modesty, full of gentleness, full of compassion and love for all, for the most depraved men of his time! The judgment of G-d is suspended over Sodom and Gomorrah, over the vilest sink of iniquity known in history, and it is Abraham who prays for Sodom and Gomorrah! "G-d concluded with him and his descendants the most separatist covenants and stamped on their body the most separatist sign of this covenant [viz. the milah, circumcision]. And we see Abraham with the pain inflicted by this sign still fresh sitting before his tent in the heat of the sun and looking out for weary travellers, inviting idolatrous strangers into his house and showing mercy and kindness and the love of G-d to all his fellow-men without distinction.

"And how could it have been any different? Was not this universalism, this broad humanity of thought and action, the very essence and object, the reason and significance of his segregation? How different from the men who built the Tower of Babel using as their motto the words na'aseh lanu shem, 'Let us make for ourselves a name.' They were prompted by selfishness, sensuality and ambition, a tower which, while it seemed to unite, in reality isolated and divided men from one another. [The Talmudic sages say that although the builders of the Tower were waging war on G-d, they nevertheless had brotherly love for each other, which was to their credit. On the other hand, the sages say elsewhere that when, in the course of building the Tower, a human would fall, no one would mourn, but when a brick fell, all would mourn the setback in construction. In his commentary to the Pentateuch, Rabbi Hirsch combines these two ideas, and proposes that the builders of the Tower were pioneers in authoritarian totalitarianism; they persuaded the citizens, for the sake of grand nationalism, to forsake their individuality and work together for a grand collective national edifice. Apparently, they were all working together as equal brethren, but in reality, the individual was turned into a mere cog of the collective, with a brick of the edifice being more valuable than its construction workers.] It was then, according to the profound remark of our Sages, that G-d called Abraham to Himself and said: "Go thou another way, desire nothing for thyself, for thine own blessing, for thine own fame, in My name call men together, k'ra bashem [proclaim and call in the name of G-d] become a blessing to them, hayah berachah [be a blessing] for behold, I have destined thee to be a father of humanity, let that be thy blessing and thy fame!"

"This remained the fundamental character of Judaism. Abraham was isolated for the sake of mankind, and for the sake of mankind Judaism has to pursue its separate way through the ages.

"Judaism is the religion which does *not* say, "There is no salvation outside of me." Judaism which is disparaged on account of its alleged particularism is precisely the religion which teaches that the upright of all peoples are marching towards the precious goal. Of all men it is the Rabbis, so loudly decried on account of their particularism, who, pointing to the predictions in the mouth of the prophets and singers of a glorious day for humanity, emphasise that there is no mention in them of priests, Levites and Israelites, but that only the just, honest and upright of all peoples are spoken of; and so the just, honest and upright of all peoples are included in teh noblest blessings. And in the darkest times, when the frenzied populace destroyed the Jewish synagogues and tore in pieces the Jewish sacred books, the persecuted and despised Jew stepped forward to the time when this frenzy also will vanish, and the name of the one and only G-d will cause justice and truth and peace to sink into every human breast. And sons visited the graves of fathers who had been slaughtered for their Judaism with the confident hope that one day on the very soil where the most terrible cruelty had raged "the name of G-d would shine forth great and holy and majestic and His kingdom would be established from one end of the earth to the other."

"And why should they not? The guide-book with which G-d had equipped them for their wanderings had solved for them the riddle of history. G-d had taken them back to to the beginning of human history and had disclosed the glorious culmination which was to follow the deepest gloom. G-d had called them His firstborn because among all the lost sons of G-d they had been the first to find their way back to Him; and they knew from this all all their fellow-men would one day follow them to their Father's heart. G-d had called them His priests, and they knew from this that all mankind must be his people, for which they as priests had to proclaim His eternal promise of salvation. And even while G-d said to them "I have separated you from the peoples", the Rabbis came to them and warned them: "Do not forget: G-d has not separated the people from you like one who picks the bad out of the good and throws it away, for then they would be cast off for ever; but G-d separated you from the peoples like one who picks the good out of the less good and goes on picking again and again and adding the better to the good" (Yalkut, Kedoshim [I myself have also seen this same idea in Pesikta d'Rav Kahana]). Every new turn in the world's history, whether for sadness or joy, they looked on as such a selection and collection of all the seeds of better promise; and all the songs of their poets and all the words of their prophets revealed nothing except this way of G-d in world history and sang of nothing but that bright morning which will one day dawnn for all mankind for all nations to see, and of which they, the Jews, will be and remain the messengers and heralds.

"Thus it is just the most isolated Jew who bears in his breast the most universal thoughts and sentiments.

"With serene glance he wanders through the world and down the ages, and joyfully welcomes every apparition in which, wherever and however it may be, he sees the seeds of a pure worship of G-d and of the ennoblement of man, the recognition of G-d and of the divine destiny of man cultivated and preserved in non-Jewish circles. And though he knows that until that morning comes he will nowhere find full and eternal salvation established on earth, yet he rejoices to see anywhere the sum total of truth and goodness increased on earth, he sees in every sunrise the beams of the morning which will one day dawn cloudlessly over mankind. Now at least he observes how one single grain which two thousands years ago fell from the rich harvest of His Divine word - not wholly free it is true from the admixture of strange elements - into the bosom of mankind, has now grown and spread so luxuriantly that, whatever clouds may yet darken the sky, it has already been greeted by men as a full redemption of mankind [do not miss the subtle sarcasm of Rabbi Hirsch, which he so discretely tucks into his none-the-less optimistic words]. He can follow step by step the blossoms of which since then have consciously and unconsciously been plucked from the Jewish tree of life to enrich the realm of truth, love and justice. When he sees this, he is filled with happiness at the thought of the endless store of salvation and blessing which mankind will enjoy when the seeds of salvation scattered from His Divine word shall have reached maturity and brought the full redemption of mankind in which G-d shall destroy death for ever, and dry the tears from every face, and also put an end to the reproach of His people upon the earth. Then his [man's] holy things will be still holier to him [man], then he will cling even more closely to his divine treasure, and he will become still firmer in his resolution to carry through to the end without flinching this vessel which bears the salvation of mankind, until

"in the end of days the mountains of of the L-rd's house shall be established as the tops of the mountains, and shall be exalted above the hills, and all nations shall flow unto it. And many peoples shall go and say, Come ye and let us go up to the mountain of the L-rd, to the house of the G-d of Jacob, and He will teach us His ways and we shall walk in His paths. For out of Zion shall go forth the law and the word of the L-rd from Jerusalem. And He shall judge between teh nations and shall decide for many peoples, and they shall beat their swords into ploughshares and their spears into pruning-hooks. Nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more." (Isaiah 2. 2-4.)

"And the wolf shall dwell with the lamb and the leopard shall lie down with the kid, and the calf and the young lion and the fatling together, and a little child shall lead them...and the suckling child shall play on the whole of the asp and the weaned child shall put out his hand playfully to the flashing eyes of the dragon. They shall not hurt nor destroy in all My holy mountain, for the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the L-rd as the waters cover the ocean bed." (Isaiah 11. 6, 8, 9.) Then, then, when the times are fitted for it, will Judaism be fitted to the times. When G-d has dried the tears from every face, then the reproach of His people on earth will end, thus hat the L-rd spoken.

"But long before reaching this goal, in his whole wandering through time and space, the Jew has by no means been so sharply in contrast with the times and lands in which he has lived. Rather has his Judaism shown him how to adapt it to every age and every land in which his lot is cast, and how to form the closest and most friendly ties with every age and every country. "For he knows that the upright and pure in all societies of men are working with him for the kingdom of G-d on earth. He knows that for almost two thousand years both the seeds of a purer humanity which were saved even in the days of heathendom and since then other genuine seeds of Jewish thought have been germinating and have come to fruition in the most varied spiritual activities for the benefit of mankind. And his very Judaism which guides him through the garden of nature and the galleries of history, which invites him to the full unfolding of his powers in the service of G-d, makes him find in every new truth which is propounded a welcome contribution to the clearer revelation of G-d in nature and in history, and to see in every new art and in every new science a welcome addition to the means for rendering perfect service to G-d.

"Hence the Jew will not frown on any art, any science, any culture provided that it is found to be true and edifying, and really to promote the welfare of mankind. He has to taste everything by the unimpeachable touchstone of his divine law; whatever does not stand this test for him does not exist. But the more firmly he takes his stand on the rock of his Judaism, the more ready will he be to accept and gratefully appropriate whatever is true and good in other sources according to Jewish standards [in his commentary to the Pentateuch, Rabbi Hirsch sees special significance in the fact that Rabbi Saadia Gaon of 10th century Iraq, in his landmark work of Jewish philosophy, Emunot v'Deot, Kitab al-Amanat wal-l'tikadat, in the section on the metaphysics of monotheism, in large part relied on the the Kalam and Mutakallim]; in whatever mind it originated, from whose-ever mouth it issued, he will always be ready to say, as the Sages say, l'kabel ha'emet mimi she'amrah to receive the truth from him who spoke it. Nowhere will he ever sacrifice a single thread of his Judaism or trim his Judaism to the needs of the time. Wherever the age offers him anything which is consonant with his Judaism he will willingly adopt it. He will in every period regard it as his duty to pay due appreciation to the age and its conditions from the standpoint of his Judaism, and to make use of the new means provided by any period in order that in the conditions of that period he may be able to make the old Jewish spirit expand in new beauty and may perform his duty to it with ever-renewed vigour and loyalty."

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(3) Rabbi Benzion Uziel, from "Loving Truth and Peace: The Grand Religious Worldview of Rabbi Benzion Uziel by Rabbi Marc D. Angel" by Dr. Zvi Zohar (book review), Plain-text, PDF

Each country and each nation which respects itself does not and cannot be satisfied with its narrow boundaries and limited domains; rather, they desire to bring in all that is good and beautiful, that is helpful and glorious, to their national [cultural] treasure. And they wish to give the maximum flow of their own blessings to the [cultural] treasury of humanity as a whole, and to establish a link of love and friendship among all nations, for the enrichment of the human storehouse of intellectual and ethical ideas and for the uncovering of the secrets of nature. Happy is the country and happy is the nation that can give itself an accounting of what it has taken in from others; and more importantly, of what it has given of its own to the repository of all humanity. Woe unto that country and that nation that encloses itself in its own four cubits and limits itself to its own narrow boundaries, lacking anything of its own to contribute [to humanity] and lacking the tools to receive [cultural contributions] from others.[Footnote 8: Hegyonei Uziel, Jerusalem 5714 vol. 2, p. 127; cited in Angel, op.cit., p. 50.]

Rambam on Practical, Sociological Reasons for the Commandments

Rambam, Moreh Nevuchim, 3:31

From the Friedlander translation,Book 3, Chapter 31 (Moreh / Guide 3:31):

THERE are persons who find it difficult to give a reason for any of the commandments, and consider it right to assume that the commandments and prohibitions have no rational basis whatever. They are led to adopt this theory by a certain disease in their soul, the existence of which they perceive, but which they are unable to discuss or to describe. For they imagine that these precepts, if they were useful in any respect, and were commanded because of their usefulness, would seem to originate in the thought and reason of some intelligent being. But as things which are not objects of reason and serve no purpose, they would undoubtedly be attributed to God, because no thought of man could have produced them. According to the theory of those weak-minded persons, man is more perfect than his Creator. For what man says or does has a certain object, whilst the actions of God are different; He commands us to do what is of no use to us, and forbids us to do what is harmless. Far be this! On the contrary, the sole object of the Law is to benefit us. Thus we explained the Scriptural passage, "for our good always, that He might preserve us alive, as it is this day" (Deut. vi. 24). Again, "which shall hear all those statutes (ḥuḳḳim), and say, surely this great nation is a wise and understanding people" (ibid. iv. 6). He thus says that even every one of these "statutes" convinces all nations of the wisdom and understanding it includes. But if no reason could be found for these statutes, if they produced no advantage and removed no evil, why then should he who believes in them and follows them be wise, reasonable, and so excellent as to raise the admiration of all nations? But the truth is undoubtedly as we have said, that every one of the six hundred and thirteen precepts serves to inculcate some truth, to remove some erroneous opinion, to establish proper relations in society, to diminish evil, to train in good manners or to warn against bad habits. All this depends on three things: opinions, morals, and social conduct. We do not count words, because precepts, whether positive or negative, if they relate to speech, belong to those precepts which regulate our social conduct, or to those which spread truth, or to those which teach morals. Thus these three principles suffice for assigning a reason for every one of the Divine commandments.

"Maimonides and Halevi: a study in typical Jewish attitudes towards Greek philosophy in the Middles Ages (1912)" - Professor Harry A. Wolfson

"Maimonides and Halevi : a study in typical Jewish attitudes towards Greek philosophy in the Middles Ages (1912)" - Professor Harry A. Wolfson.

http://www.archive.org/details/maimonideshalevi00wolfuoft

An incisive comparison between the Jewish and Greek worldviews, showing that R' Yehuda haLevi (haKuzari) and Rambam respectively followed these viewpoints.

The Jews saw an ethical purpose in everything; thus, metaphysical speculation led to the conclusion that there must be a G-d who sees all our deeds and judges us. This also led to the belief that history has some definite aim and scheme, tending towards an ethical culmination. Of course, seeing an ethical purpose in everything was not conducive to cultivating studies of natural law.

The Greeks, on the other hand, saw order and purpose and consistency in all. This was conducive to scientific study, but also led to a view of history as cyclical and repetitive, and to the idea of a G-d who was so perfect and transcendent, that He had no dealings with the world or concern in man's actions. Thus,

The latter [viz. the Greeks] reflected upon the purposiveness of nature but saw no teleology in the flux of history; Halevi [who was of Hebraic cast of mind], on the other hand, denies the purposiveness of nature, but asserts the onward march of history to a clearly-defined end.

In summary,

These opposing conceptions of reality have been well summarized by Dr. H. M. Kallen in a recent paper on the subject. "For the Greeks, change is unreal and evil; for the Hebrews the essence of reality is change. The Greek view of reality is static and structural; the Hebrew view is dynamic and functional. The Hebrew saw the world as a history. For them the inwardness of reality lay in the movement of events. The Greeks saw the world as an immutable hierarchy of forms; for them the reality was the inert order of being."

Thus, to the Jewish conception,

God is the dynamic essence of the world, life, reality, natura naturans. God is reality, and as reality consists in the change of events, so God is changeful. And He is not changed by His own will but by the will and actions of men. "Said the God of Israel, I rule over men, who rules over Me? The righteous; for I issue a decree, and the righteous man cancels it." God's anger is kindled at the evil doings of men, but He regrets the evil He intended to bring upon them, as soon as they improve their ways. The relation between God and man is personal and mutual. "Return to Me and I will return to you."

By contrast,

The conception of God among the Greeks was of quite a different nature. ... all Greek philosophers identify God with some logical or metaphysical term. To Plato God is identical with the Good, a mere term of discourse, without life and personality. ... The God of Aristotle again, does not come into contact with the sublunary world. "God is the primum mobile only in so far as he is the absolute end of the world, the governor, as it were, whose will ail obey, but who never sets his own hand to the work." ... It is...clear that the nature of Aristotle's deity consists of unceasing sleepless contemplation and absolutely perfect activity, an activity that cannot alter, since to a perfect being alteration would involve a loss of perfection. "Evidently then, it thinks that which is most divine and precious, and it does not change; for change would be change for the worse, and this would be already a movement." "Therefore it must be itself that thought thinks, and its thinking is a thinking on thinking." Thus by confirming the function of the Divine Reason to a monotonous self-contemplation, not quickened into life by any change or development, Aristotle merges the notion of personality in a mere abstraction.

Moreover, as far as the rules of conduct go,

The original diversity between the Hebraic and the Hellenic views of being becomes still more patent in their ideals of conduct and the end of life. The Jews who had a theory of creation as opposed to the Greek philosophical doctrine of the eternity of matter, the Highest Good was not that to which all things aim to reach but that for the sake of which all things had been created.

But for the Greeks, the Highest Good was some external end or aim, to which life was to be directed, viz. conjunction with the Active Intellect, or some such.

To the Greeks, on the other hand, the Highest Good resides in the individual, in the perfection of all his mental and physical qualities and in the attainment of the supreme good of rationality.

Thus, reason and intellectual speculation were paramount, and ethical conduct was only a means to this end. For the Jews, by contrast, ethical conduct was its own end; the very purpose of life was ethical conduct in the course of day-to-day living, period.

Wolfson summarizes:

These, then, present the most obvious distinctions between the Jewish and the Greek insight. In the first place there was the distinction in their idea of God, who, according to the Jews, was the living One, personally related to man, and who, according to the Greek philosophers, was the Prime Mover, existing outside the world. Then, there was the distinction in their ethical system. To the Jew the aim of life was to live happily as a member of the total polity. To the Greek the essence of man is to be rational. Virtues are good in so far as they conduce to the highest good ; and society likewise is merely a means to facilitate man's reaching the Highest Good.

It is especially in ethics that Rambam and the Kuzari part ways, which forms the subject of the majority of the essay. For Rambam, the purpose of the Torah's mitzvot, following the Greek model, was to create an ideal society, in order that the man of reason have tranquility and plenty in which to conduct his speculations; all of mankind exists for these few men of reason (Rambam's Introduction to the Mishna). But the ultimate purpose of man is philosophize and engage in metaphysical speculation, and perfect his intellect.

The attempt to satisfy that need [to reconcile Judaism and Greek philosophy] resulted in the creation of a religious philosophy which, though different from Philo's in content, was very much like it in spirit and general outlook. Like Philo, the philosophers of the Middle Ages aimed at reconciling Jewish religion with Greek philosophy, by recasting the substance of the former in the form of the latter. The principles upon which they worked were (i) that the practical religious organization of Jewish life must be preserved, but (2) that they must be justified and defended in accordance with the principles of Greek philosophy. Thus Hellenic theory was to bolster Hebraic dogma, and Greek speculation became the basis for Jewish conduct. The carrying out of this programme, therefore, unlike that of Pauline Christianity, involved neither change in the practice of the religion, nor abrogation of the Law. ... Philo and the mediaeval philosophers continued to worship God in the Jewish fashion, but their conception of God became de-Judaized. They continued to commend the observation of the Law, but this observation lost caste and became less worthy than the "theoretic life." Practice and theory fell apart logically; instead there arose an artificial parallelism of theoretic with practical obligations.

And following the Greek model,

[Human perfection] is to be found in the perfection of the intellect, the development of the loftiest intellectual faculties, the possession of such notions which lead to true metaphysical opinions about God. ... [T]he highest perfection of man consists in his becoming an "actually intelligent being." The acts conducing to that are the virtues. Acts are, therefore, in themselves neither good nor bad; their moral value is determined by their furthering or preventing the Highest Perfection. Hence there is no virtue in doing righteousness for its own sake.

As regards Rambam in particular, he

does not...examine the views of the philosophers with the object of supporting the Jewish traditional interpretation of religious principles. His aim is solely to show that Scriptures and Talmud, correctly interpreted, strictly harmonize with the philosophical writings of Aristotle.

Indeed, then, to quote Rambam himself in Moreh 3:27,

Of these two ways - knowledge and conduct - the one, the communication of correct opinions, comes undoubtedly first in rank.

and ibid.:

For the Highest Perfection certainly does not include any action or good conduct, but only knowledge, which is arrived at by speculation, or established by research.

As for society, Rambam holds, according to Wolfson, that "All mankind live only for the few who can reach the Highest Perfection, just as all earthly beings exist for men. Thus, Rambam in his Hakdama to the Misha says

Common men exist for two reasons ; first, to do the work that is needed in the state in order that the
actually intelligent man should be provided with all his wants and be able to pursue his studies; second, to accompany the wise lest they feel lonely, since the number of
wise men is small.

Therefore, says Wolfson,

It is on the basis of this ethical system that Maimonides evaluates the Jewish Law. In its speculative part the Law contains Aristotle's metaphysics couched in language suitable for the intelligence of the common people. In its practical part [i.e. the halacha; the Mishneh Torah, for example], it is a scheme of a social organization planned to produce "actually intelligent beings." That the practice of the Law will not alone conduce to the Highest Perfection, we have already seen. That must be reached by reason. But Maimonides argues that such practice is meant to prepare the environment favorable to the attainment of the perfection of self-sufficiency.

Wolfson concludes of Rambam, that

Such a view, it is clear, could hardly be more Hellenic and still save even a semblance of Judaism. Maimonides was not a rabbi employing Greek logic and categories of thought in order to interpret Jewish religion ; he was rather a true mediaeval Aristotelian, using Jewish religion as an illustration of the Stagirite's metaphysical supremacy. Maimonides adheres staunchly to the Law, or course, but his adherence is not the logical consequence of his system. It has its basis in his heredity and practical interests; it is not the logical implication of his philosophy. Judaism designated the established social order of life, in which Maimonides lived and moved and had his being; and it was logically as remote from his intellectual interests as he was historically remote from Aristotle. That, naturally, he was unaware of the dualism must be clear. Indeed, he thought he had made a synthesis, and had given scientific demonstrations of poetic conceptions. ... Maimonides really saw no incompatibility between his Judaism and his philosophy; he was a Jew in letter and philosopher in spirit throughout his life.

By contrast, in the Kuzari,

Halevi displays, for his time, a
remarkable freshness and originality of view. In a period when Hellenic thought dominated Jewish and Arabic intellect, he was, though as familiar with it as the closest student of the Greeks, remarkably free of its influence. He sees clearly, in contradistinction to most Jewish thinkers of his time, the essential differences between the Jewish and the Greek ideas of God, of conduct and of human destiny. From Philo to Maimonides, Jewish dialecticians were intent upon thinning the concrete formalism of the biblical God to the abstract and tenuous formalism of the Aristotelian Prime Mover. They reduced differences, so far as they could, to expression and terminology, and sought to eliminate whatever more fundamental diversity there remained by explaining it away. They failed to note the tremendous scope of the diversity how it reached down into the very nature and temperaments of people and spread to the unbounded cosmos itself. Halevi alone among the philosophizing rabbis recognized the ineradicable reality of the difference, and pointed out with unmistakable clearness the essential distinctions between the Prime Mover of the Greeks and God of the Jews. ... He and those who think like him are genuinely Hebraic. They repudiate the Hellenizing tendency which, to them, vitiates Jewish thought, and they do so often with a critical acumen that anticipates the controversy between the eternalists and the temporalists of our times.

For the Kuzari, revelation and religion are their own ends; a personal relationship with G-d, and conduct and lifestyle according to His guidelines, constitute the entirety of man. The Kuzari's unique status, according to Wolfson, is that almost alone of all the medieval Jewish philosophers, he recognized the stark contrast between Jewish and Greek thought, and he was not afraid to therefore question the hegemony of Greek philosophy. To be sure, he did accept Greek philosophy at times, but only on his terms, when he felt the evidence and proofs offered were sufficient, but he gave the benefit of the doubt to Jewish thought, and the burden of proof was on the Greeks.

We can see the difference between the Kuzari and Rambam even in their style of writing:

Halevi is ruled by feeling and sentiment, full of scepticism as to the validity of reason, and he is chiefly interested in ethics. Maimonides' chief philosophic work, "Moreh Nebukim (מורה נבוכים)" is a formal, impersonal treatment of his philosophy. Halevi's "Kuzari" (כוזרי) is written in dialogue and its problems are attacked not more scholastico but in the more spontaneous literary and intense fashion of Job.

However, reader beware: the Kuzari

is not a systematic philosophical work. Its order is conversational rather than structural, and it is less allied to Plato than to Job. The ideas suggest more than they express; they carry the conviction of insight rather the force of demonstration. Halevi is less explicit than Maimonides, less careful about making manifest implication of his system. He needs more interpretation than the other.

It is because of the greater amount of interpretation that the Kuzari requires, that I did not here quote passages to prove Wolfson's thesis; to do so would require an inordinate amount of quotation and explanation, and the reader would be better served by simply reading Wolfson's essay in the original.

But just to offer an example: The Kuzari says (4:13)

"The philosopher only seeks Him that he may be able to describe Him accurately in detail, as he would describe the earth, explaining that it is in the center of the great sphere, but not in that of the zodiac."

His point, which requires careful reading (since the Kuzari does not spell out the implications of his statements), is that the philosophers only seek and describe G-d in a cold, technical way, like one might describe a bridge with mathematical formulae. No emotions are touched by this, and G-d is left as a cold, impersonal entity with no real relevance for one's life. Certainly, one would be hard-pressed to find a compelling reason to shape his entire life for this cold transcendent entity. For the religious individual, by contrast, G-d is someone imminent and close, a Father and a King, who has direct and close relations with His creation, and one will shape his life, and even give his life, for Him. In the next paragraph, the Kuzari says,

"The meaning of אלהים can be grasped by way of speculation, because a Guide and a Manager of the world is a postulate of reason. The meaning of יהוה, however, cannot be grasped by speculation, but only by that intuition and prophetic vision which separates man from his kind and brings him into contact with angelic beings, imbuing him with a new spirit."

Elokim is the philosophers' G-d; He is the G-d of the laws of nature, deducible by reason and speculation, and conceivable as the Creator. However, Hashem is the G-d of religion; He has personality, and is an entity Who can be known by those who worship Him, and Who has relevance and meaning to one's life. As Rabbi Dr. Eliezer Berkovits says in God, Man, and History, one can have good metaphysics without good religion, and one can have good religion without good metaphysics; one can understand Elokim without understanding Hashem (like the philosophers), and one can understand Hashem without understanding Elokim (like a simple and unlearned but pious Jew). Moreover, as many have noted (most recently, I saw Rabbi Shalom Carmy make this point), just as no one would ever try to prove his friend's existence, and just as no one would try to prove his car's existence, no religious person would try to prove G-d's existence - He is Someone that the religious person knows personally, and you don't need to prove His existence with mathematical proofs.

One can see from this example that the Kuzari requires very careful reading to tease out his intent, and thus, this blog entry will not be able to show how the Kuzari differed with the Rambam; I leave that to Wolfson's essay.

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A side-note: Wolfson says

Now, the purpose of creation has indisputably been declared to be the Torah (תורה). "But for the Torah, heaven and earth would not have existed." Everything in the world was created according to the prescriptions of the Torah. "The Holy One looked in the Torah while creating the world." "Hence the Torah is the most adequate guide for human life, for it is the most relevant to human nature.

This is a matter on which many err, on statements which most erroneously take literally, i.e. that the Torah really and truly preceded the world as a metaphysical entity, etc. Wolfson has interpreted the statements ethically: the Torah preceded the world insofar as the purpose of the world is ethics, etc. Cf. G. F. Moore, "The Idea of Torah in Judaism", http://www.adath-shalom.ca/idea_torah.htm:

In Proverbs, Wisdom was present at the creation of the world, not as a passive onlooker, but as a participant in the making and in the joy of the Maker. She was at God's side as a skilled artificer, or artist. Identifying Wisdom with Torah, and taking amon in the sense of instrument, Akiba speaks of the Torah as the instrument with which the world was created. According to others, it was the plan, or pattern, after which the world was made. Or again, the world was created for the sake of the Torah. It is permissible to modernize the last words: The world was created for religion; a stage on which, under the guidance of revelation, the right relation between God and man might be realized.

In like wise, Rabbis J. H. Hertz and S. R. Hirsch both interpret like Wolfson and Moore: (1) on that mishna in Avot regarding Rabbi Akiva and Torah being the instrument for creation (3:18); (2) Rabbi Hirsch near the beginning of Sefer Bereshit, referring to the world being created for the sake of Torah; (3) Rabbi Hirsch on Avot 6:10 about the five possessions of God, referring to the Torah preceding creation and being its instrument: both Rabbi Hertz and Rabbi Hirsch agree with Wolfson and Moore that these statements (that the Torah preceded the world, that the Torah is the world's blueprint, etc.) are ALLEGORICAL, viz. that the world was created with religion as its basis, as a stage for the Torah's (in the sense of religion) execution in reality and life. These statements are NOT meant literally as statements of metaphysics or cosmology.

Coincidence

I was reading Professor Harry Wolfson's "Maimonides and Halevi", and I came across the sentence, "The test of individual perfection is the perfect harmony or coincidence...".

I was puzzled for a moment; obviously, by "coincidence" he meant two things being present at once, or overlapping, but the choice of words was peculiar. For a moment, I was going to chalk it up to obsolete vocabulary (this essay is about 100 years old), but then I realized:

coincidence, with the "cid" pronounced as "Sid".
coincidence, with the "i" in "cid" pronounced as in "Eye"

With the former pronunciation, it means co-incident, "incident" as in "happening", occurrence; the two things happened at once, usually by chance.

With the latter pronunciation, it means two things coincided, i.e. were as one, united, joined.

Now, I bet these both have a common origin (coincide + ence, the act of coinciding), but since then, we've tended to use "coincidence" in the former sense, of two things happening at once by chance. But doesn't the latter sense (viz. two things being joined, or present together, unified) make sense, once pronounce the vowel differently?

Scientific Developments that Contradict the Torah: Do Not Have a Kneejerk Reaction

Tzvi Feldman, Rav A. Y. Kook - Selected Letters (Ma'aliot Publications of Yeshivat Birkat Moshe; Ma'aleh Adumim, Israel, 1986):

Igrot 134, pp. 11f, 14:

I necessarily find myself obligated to awaken your pure spirit in regard to the theories that have emerged from new research, which for the most part contradicts the literal meaning of the Torah. My opinion on this is, that anyone with common sense should know that although there is no necessary truth in all these new theories, at any rate we are not in the least bit obligated to decisively refute and oppose them, because the Torah's primary objective is not to tell us simple facts and events of the past. What is most important is the [Torah's] interior - the inner meaning of the subjects, and this [message] will become greater still in places where there is a counterforce, which motivates us to become strengthened by it. The gist of this has already been recorded in the words of our Rishonim, headed by The Guide for the Perplexed [Maimonides devotes a major portion of the first 49 chapters of the first part of the Guide to explaining biblical terms ascribing human characteristics and form to God. Maimonides argues that these terms have an allegorical meaning when applied to God. Many Rishonim, the great legal authorities of the Middle Ages (including Josef Albo, Yehuda Halevi, and others) interpret the story of the Garden of Eden allegorically.], and today we are ready to expand more on these matters. It makes no difference for us if in truth there was in the world an actual Garden of Eden, during which man delighted in an abundance of physical and spiritual good, or if actual existence began from the bottom upwards, from the lowest level of being towards its highest, an upward movement. We only have to know that there is a real possibility that even if a man has risen to a high level, and has been deserving of all honors and pleasures, if he corrupts his ways, he can lose all that he has, and bring harm to himself and to his descendants for many generations, and that this is the lesson we learn from the story of Adam's existence in the Garden of Eden, his sin and expulsion. And the Master of all souls knows just how deeply this lesson should be impressed in people's hearts in order that they may avoid sin, and according to this depth were the exact number of letters written in the true Torah. When we accept this view, we no longer have any particular need to fight against the descriptions that have gained fame among the new researchers, and having become unbiased in the matter we will be able to judge fairly, and now we will be able to refute peacefully their conclusions as much as truth will show the way.

...

And in general, this is an important rule in the struggle of ideas: we should not immediately refute any idea which comes to contradict anything in the Torah, but rather, we should build the palace of Torah above it; in doing so we are exalted by the Torah, and through this exaltation the ideas are revealed, and thereafter, when we are not pressured by anything, we can confidently also struggle against it.

In other words: while accepting that perhaps the new researches are in fact false (Rav Kook, later in the same letter, notes that he himself still feels the Garden of Eden literally existed and happened), first, one must analyze whether in fact the Torah must truly declare this new finding to be heretical. For in fact, perhaps the findings of this new research are not antithetical to the Torah at all, and we may accept them if they are proven objectively true! If the findings are antithetical, then we must vociferously oppose them as heretical, but if in fact, there is nothing heretical per se in the findings, we may dispassionately and calmly analyze their correctness, confident that either the findings will be objectively false, or true and acceptable. Perhaps there is nothing heretical in the findings, and it is only a question of being true or false, but not heretical either way. Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz, in his ubiquitous The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, applies this lesson, regarding the question of how many hands composed the book of Yishayahu/Isaiah, p. 942:

Are both parts of the Book the work of one hand, Isaiah, the statesman-prophet of Jerusalem? Or, Is the second part of the work of an unknown prophet in Babylon, whose anonymous writings were later appended to the Prophecies of Isaiah?

This question can be considered dispassionately. It touches no dogma, or any religious principle in Judaism; and moreover, does not materially affect the understanding of prophecies, or of the human conditions of the Jewish people that they have in view.

...

There is nothing inherently improbable in the traditional belief; and though it finds few modern supporters, it has had able defenders among scholars Jewish and non-Jewish; to name only Luzaztto in the nineteenth century, and Kaminka in the twentieth. However, nearly all scholars to-day assume that the author of the later chapters was not identical with the author of chapters I-XXXIX. Ibn Ezra was the first who maintained that they are the work of a contemporary of the events they presupposed [and not Isaiah, who lived earlier]. And it has often been pointed out that neither the appearance of Cyrus nor the captivity of Israel are ever predicted in them; they are everywhere assumed as facts known to the readers ...[And yet, despite this modern scholarly view having proofs, and even not being heretical, as Rav Hertz said, allowing us to dispassionately assess the subject, n]one of the arguments for the dual authorship of Isaiah explains how the name of that [second, later, anonymous] Prophet whose outpouring brought about resurrection of Jewish life in the Holy Land should have been clean forgotten; and forgotten by the very people who cherished the name of the earlier seer for prophecies which were of no direct concern to them (Kaminka). ... Neither is the newer view strengthened by those who... It may be added that the Critics are hopelessly at variance as to...

Regarding the Garden of Eden being allegorical, see Rabbi Dr. J. H. Hertz's ubiquitous The Pentateuch and Haftorahs, pp. 195f:

Is the narrative literal or figurative, and is the Serpent an animal, a demon or merely the symbolic representation of Sin? Various have been the answers to these questions, and none of them are of cardinal importance to the Faith of the Jew. There is nothing in Judaism against the belief that the Bible attempts to convey deep truths of life and conduct by means of allegory. The Rabbis often taught by parable; and such method of instruction is, as is well known, the immemorial way among Oriental peoples. Eminent Jewish thinkers, like Maimonides and Nachmanides, have accordingly understood this chapter as a parable; and Saadyah regarded the Serpent as the personification of the sinful tendencies in man, the Yetzer hara, the Evil Imagination.

Two fundamental religious truths are reflected in this Chapter. One of them is, the seriousness of sin. There is an everlasting distinction between right and wrong, between good and evil. There have always been voices – Serpent voices – deriding all moral do's and don'ts, proclaiming instinct and inclination to be the truest guides to human happiness [in particular, see the commentary of Rabbi Hirsch in this regard – M. M.], and bluntly denying that any evil consequences follow defiance of God's commands. This Chapter for all time warns mankind against these insidious and fateful voices. In the words of Isaiah it seems to say, 'Woe unto them that call evil good and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter! Woe unto them that are wise in their own eyes.'

The other vital teaching of this chapter is, Free will has been given to man, and it is in his power to work either with or against God. It is not the knowledge of evil, but the succumbing to it, which is deadly; man may see the forbidden fruit, he need no eat of it. Man himself can make or mar his destiny. In all ages and in all conditions, man has shown the power to resist the suggestions of sin and proved himself superior to the power of evil. And if a man stumble and fall on the pathway of life, Judaism bids him rise again and seek the face of His Heavenly Father in humility, contrition, and repentance. 'If a man sin, what is his punishment?' ask the Rabbis...The answer of the Almighty is, 'Let a man repent, and his sin will be forgiven him' – the wages of sin is repentance.”

And see also Rav Kook's letters (Feldman, op. cit.). pp. 17f, Igrot 478:

And if we find in the Torah certain things which other people think were based on the widely accepted notions of the distant past, but which are incompatible with the scientific knowledge of today, indeed, we do not know at all if today's research is absolute truth, and even if it is true, certainly there is also some important and sacred objective for which certain matters [in the Torah] needed to be presented in the commonly accepted description and not the exact one, as is plain in the spiritual concepts and in certain foundations of practice, for "the Torah provided for man's evil passions" {i.e., the Torah made certain laws as concessions to man's nature - M. M.} or "to make [its words] intelligible {by using human idioms and language usage - M. M.}," and upon all of them appears the living endearing divine wisdom.

This brings us to Rav Kook's Eder Hayakar, pp. 42-43, translated in Ben Zion Bokser, The Essential Writings of Abraham Isaac Kook (Amity House: Amity, New York, 1988.), p. 48, "Assyriology and the Bible":

As to the similarities in teaching [between the Torah and the Code of Hammurabi], it was already made clear in the days of Maimonides, and before him in the teachings of the Talmudic sages, that prophecy reckons with man's nature, for it is its mission to raise his nature and his disposition by divine guidance, as is implied in the statement that "the commandments were only given so as to refine the nature of people" (Genesis Rabbah 44:1). Hence, whatever educational elements there were in before the giving of the Torah, which gained a following among the [Jewish] people and the world, if they only had a basis in morality and it was possible to raise them up to a high moral level - the Torah retained them.

In other words, the Torah's laws and the laws of Hammurabi often appear similar because the Torah, wherever it could, sought to retain the ancient and familiar ways, either incorporating them unaltered, or altering them slightly to fit the Torah's requirements, rather than wholesale craft new, unfamiliar and unprecedented laws and mores. Alternatively, given how many times the Torah starkly contradicts the Code of Hammurabi, using the same basic language and examples, but coming to a totally opposite conclusion (see Rabbi Hertz's essay in the back of the book of Exodus in his Pentateuch), it appears to me (I do not believe Rabbi Hertz says this) that perhaps the Torah chose to imitate the Code of Hammurabi in order to make the contrast all the more striking and apparent. And thus, speaking of the resemblance between the Torah's grand and ethically inspiring account of the Flood (man is punished for being sinful, and Noah is saved for being righteous), and the gross and immoral Babylonian story of the Deluge (the gods punish man for being loud and disturbing their sleep, and the protagonist is saved for being the personal favorite of a particular god), Rav Hertz (Pentateuch, op. cit.) writes (p. 198):

In its Babylonian form, Assyriologists tell us, the story seems to have been reduced to writing as early as the days of Abraham. It must have been known in substance to the children of Israel in Canaan and later in Egypt. But in the form in which, under God's Providence, the Patriarchs transmitted it to their descendants, it was free from all degrading elements, and became an assertion of the everlasting righteousness of the One God. 'The Babylonian parallel only serves to bring out the unique grandeur of Israel's God-idea, which could thus purify and transform the most uncongenial and repugnant features of the ancient Deluge tradition.' (Gunkel).

However, we have a difficult with Rav Hertz: He said, "...But in the form in which, under God's Providence, the Patriarchs transmitted it to their descendants...". But did not G-d write the Torah, dictating it word-by-word to Moses??!! Yes, Rav Hertz's thesis would stand if we say that G-d dictated the Flood story to Moses in this way, as a moral contrast to the gross Babylonian story, but why did Rav Hertz attribute the grand version of the Torah to the Patriarchs; it was Moses and G-d, not the Patriarchs! As we learned from Rav Kook previously, let us not be too hasty; let us first evaluate whether or not there is perhaps some basis to this idea, before we outright declare it heretical. This difficulty is brilliantly answered by Rabbi Gil Student at Torat Emet, in his article "On the Authorship of the Torah":

The answer is simply that our forefathers Avraham, Yitzchak, and Ya'akov, and even those who preceded them like Adam and Noach, wrote down personal histories and theological works that were kept by their descendants. As prophets, their writings were sacred and treated like holy books. They were studied by their children and handed down from generation to generation. ... Throughout the stay in Egypt and the desert, the scrolls of the forefathers were treated as sacred books and studied. These books, which were written under prophetic inspiration, form the basis of the book of Genesis. Granted, they were highly edited [by later prophets, after the Patriarchs] so that the book would not be too long. Also, phrases and even verses were added to the texts that perhaps even these prophets could not have written [and rather, G-d dictated them]. ... Most importantly, G-d had to edit the scrolls...

Rabbi Student brings extensive evidence from the Talmud and Rishonim, and even the Torah itself, to support this claim. In other words, the Patriarchs wrote their own scrolls, and later prophets, under the direction of G-d, edited these scrolls and incorporated them into the Torah.

I later saw that Rabbi Emanuel Rackman makes a point very similar to Student's, in the former's One Man's Judaism. On page 276 of the old 1970 Philosophical Library edition (I lack the 2004 Gefen edition), we read:

Several Sages held that Moses himself wrote the book of Deuteronomy but God dictated its inclusion with the earlier books. Moreover, much in the earlier books started also as the work of man. In their dialogues with God the Patriarchs spoke their own words. Jacob composed his own prophecy for his offspring. Moses sang his own song of triumph on the Red Sea. In the final analysis, then, the sanctity of the Pentateuch does not derive from God's authorship of all of it but rather from the fact that God's is the final version.

We earlier saw what Rabbi Hertz says about Isaiah. Rabbi Rackman (ibid.) speaks on the same subject, saying,

If this is the situation with regard to the Pentateuch, is it wise to add dogmas that the books of the Prophets and the Writings were all authored by the men to whom the Tradition attributes them? The Talmud itself was not dogmatic, but contemporary Orthodoxy always feels impelled to embrace every tradition as dogma. The Talmud suggests that perhaps David did not write all the Psalms. Is one a heretic because one suggests that perhaps other books were authored by more than one person or that several books attributed by the Tradition to one author were in fact written by several at different times? A volume recently published makes an excellent argument for the position that there was but one Isaiah, but must one be shocked when it is opined that there may have been two or three prophets bearing the same name? No Sage of the past ever included in the articles of faith a dogma about the authorship of the books of the Bible other than the Pentateuch. What is the religious, moral, or intellectual need for adding dogmas now when it is well known with regard to many such issues that there always prevailed a noblesse oblige among scholars? It may be heresy to deny the possibility of prophetic prediction, but it is not heresy to argue about authorship on the basis of objective historical and literary evidence. How material is it that one really believes that Solomon wrote all three scrolls attributed to him? Is the value of the writings itself affected? And if the only purpose is to discourage critical scholarship, then, alas, Orthodoxy is declaring bankrupty: it is saying that only the ignorant can be pious - a reversal of the Talmudic dictum.

Rabbi Rackman said, "It may be heresy to deny the possibility of prophetic prediction, but it is not heresy to argue about authorship on the basis of objective historical and literary evidence." See my thoughts on the authenticity of Sefer Daniel: Thoughts on Sefer Daniel, Qabala, Tehiat ha-Meitim - Are These Authentically Jewish?