Questions of Faith I

Hello Rabbi.  Do you prefer Doctor? 

Though I should be cultivating reverence for the Talmud, I don’t really understand what it is and am skeptical about the picture of reality which we draw from it.  I don't understand the development of Machlokes.  In a general sense yes.  There seems to be human fallibility involved though people treat everything mentioned as if from the mouth of god.  "Chazal say!"  The metaphysics and science bothers me.  Do I have to accept them?  Demons, angels, large birds, and everything in between ..how do the rabbis know this?  Might old world superstition be mixed in?  One rabbi said i don;t need to believe in demons for instance, another said YES! You have to.  They should get together and talk.  Chazal were people.  I identified with Slifkins work though he's in trouble for that.

The other things that bothers me is that Ii cannot see a means for personal creative thought if every inch of mind-space is extracted from the Torah.  This epistemology is strange to me.  I am not allowed to make conjectures about anything!  I do get by with some homemade drashes though. 

I enjoy the discourse, but hope to discover a broader one  within Torah though I do not have such access now.  I do understand that I am in no place to make distinctions of what is most "real", though I have to be honest about my thoughts however arrogant they seem. 

There are many things that I hope to gain understanding of in time. I have other questions about the Torahs perspective on world history outside Judaism and the Bais hamikdash among other things, though those are for another day.

Response: Thank you for the questions? You formulate them strongly and convincingly. I hope that you will allow me to publish them without attribution ( which I assume you do not want) in future writings.

Machlokes is a problem. The way to approach them best, I think is not so much to engage in technical or mystical ruminations about how they came to be but to consider how they fit into the unique structure of Jewish religiosity. I will very briefly review the 3 prevailing theories of how Machlokes began. My sources are the just published The Rabbis Advocate (Yashar Press)  by Meir Levin and Moshe. Habertal, People of the Book: Canon, Meaning, and Authority, Harvard University Press (see here, http://www.amazon.com/People-Book-Canon-Meaning-Authority/dp/0674661125).

Habertal’s article that served the basis for the chapter in the book can be found at http://www.law.harvard.edu/programs/Gruss/halbert.html.

According to Halbertal there are three views on how disputes arose, according to Levin there are two views, with two versions of the second view. These are:

1.Geonim - All the details of all the halachos were given at Sinai but the process of forgetting began already with Moshe’s death. It accelerated in the second temple period owing to persecutions, dispersions and spiritual and intellectual decline. Along its side rose the process of reconstruction thought the previously received principles of interpretation and various methods of analogizing.

This view has the advantage on not conceding an inch to the claims of the heretics. It suffers from the disadvantage of  underscoring the fallability of the transmitters of the Tradition, exactly as you express it. It is also incompatible with modern sensibilities and understanding of hermeneutics, and sociology of religion. It requires a claim that the process of the transmission of the Tradition is unique and solely under the guidance of the Divine Inspiration; in other words, an exception to how we know our own learning and teaching functions.

2. Not all of the Torah was explicitly given, or all of the Torah was explicitly given, which amounts to the same thing at the final account.

2a. Rambam – The Torah consisted of certain halachos, definitions of terms, commonly accepted assumptions on how civil law and religion works. Undergirding it was a shared method. Once, the old methods of study could not be maintained (or, I would say dispersion and infiltration of outside cultures created divisions in approach), disputes began to become more and more common. This approach is most consistent, or at least potentially reconcilable with  academic Science of Judaism.

2b. Kabbbalistic approaches (Ritvo Eruvin 13) - All opinions and all possibilities were a part of the initial revelation. This may have been a part of what Moshe actually heard at Sinai, or it may have been implied and potential in the limited corpus that he received. As such, all sides of all arguments are Divine Torah.

Now to the main point.

Presence of disputes in every area of halacha and Jewish thought leads to a very basic difference between Judaism and every other religion and system of thought. All others believe in one truth – and it is their truth. On other words, a text, unless intentionally designed to be ambiguous (and this is rare) has only one ‘true’ interpretation. It may not be possible to prove which of the two or three plausible interpretations is correct but, in theory at least, there is only one correct hermeneutic.  It may be the plain meaning or the allegorical interpretation but there is only one correct meaning.

Judaism as a living faith an ontological reality is shaped by mechlokes. What I mean by that is that it takes as the central tenet of its experience the certitude that  Truth is multilevel, that all inconsistencies are ultimately reconcilable, that human experience grasps only partially, and that which we know today to be incorrect, may in the future, as we grow and out perception expands, become as true and close to our senses as our own breath.

In this fashion, the experience of machlokes shapes our experience as religious Jews and informs out experience of Judaic spirituality. It is vital to how we perceive the world – layers of spirituality that interfold and transform one into the other - Unity in multiplicity ( devotees of Rambam might disagree with this formulation but they are in a very small minority)..

Other religions have trouble accommodating the paradox of the One among multiplicity, of spiritual within the physical, of good and evil, of how to tolerate and embrace versus reject and seek to destroy. Without the sensibility of machlokes we, Jews, would not be what we are. Instead of being embarrassed and seek to explain away machlokes, we need to embrace and rejoice in them – for it is that which makes us Jews, who feel, perceive, feel and worship in uniquely Jewish way.

I will continue to respond to your question, point-by-point, as I find time and energy to write. Please follow-up and probe so we both better understand.

Comments

[Bob Miller]

Also see: The Dynamics of Dispute: The Makings of Machlokess in Talmudic Times, by Rabbi Zvi Lampel (Judaica Press)

http://www.amazon.com/Dynamics-Dispute-Makings-Machlokess-Talmudic/dp/0910818991