Is There Anything at All Rational About 'Rationalism'??
I'm too exasperated to put a clever subtitle here
Where is the rationale here?
Ok, so there’s this school of thought called “Rationalism”, which when applied to Judaic theology, presumes to use a rational logical approach in understanding Jewish thought. Very commendable. I try to be rational and logical as well. But for some inexplicable reason, I’m finding that my favorite Rationalist Jewish website has been reaching increasingly utterly outlandish conclusions, when viewed through the lens of Jewish theology.
In his recent provocative post (undoubtedly intentional to stir up action after an inert Pesach), Natan Slifkin had this to say:
In the last few weeks, there have been a number of tragedies in Israel. There was the terrible murders of Lucy, Maia and Rina Dee. There was a young man from Beit Shemesh who was killed in an ATV accident. There were two people killed in a flash flood. And there were other tragedies, too.
A statistical analysis would presumably demonstrate that all this is nothing anomalous. Tragedies happen; sometimes there are more and sometimes there are less. However, Rav Gershon Edelstein, the venerable leading “Daas Torah” of the Litvishe charedi world and the spiritual head of the Degel HaTorah party, says otherwise.
(Of course he then spends the rest of the post mocking R’ Edelstein and preoccupied with his famous brilliant question: If Chareidim really think that Torah protects, why do they have bein hazmanim? It can’t be because by no means do Chareidim entirely cease learning Torah during bein hazmanim either and generally use the time for learning, Yom Tov, and things productive to their general wellbeing to further their avodas Hashem; and that creating a universal rotating bein hazmanim would be a logistical nightmare, being that the entire Chareidi society -think schools, work, camp etc. - is all structured around the Yeshiva schedule. No. It’s because really, Chareidim don’t think that Torah protects. Uh huh. I think by now we can all agree he deserves a Nobel Prize in philosophy for this one).
But here's the thing: as Torah Jews, we do not believe that things happen by chance1. There is simply no such thing as saying, 'A statistical analysis would presumably demonstrate that all of this is nothing anomalous. Tragedies happen; sometimes there are more and sometimes there are less.' The great 'Rationalist' Rambam himself, whom this movement purports to study and whose teachings and philosophy it claims to follow, says the following at the beginning of Hilchos Ta'anis:
Conversely, should the people fail to cry out [to God] and sound the trumpets, and instead say, "What has happened to us is merely a natural phenomenon and this difficulty is merely a chance occurrence," this is a cruelty, which causes them to remain attached to their wicked deeds. Thus, this time of distress will lead to further distresses.
This is implied by the Torah's statement [Leviticus 26:27-28]: "If you remain indifferent to Me, I will be indifferent to you with a vengeance." The implication of the verse is: When I bring difficulties upon you so that you shall repent and you say it is a chance occurrence, I will add to your [punishment] an expression of vengeance for that indifference [to Divine Providence].(Hilchos Ta’anis, 1:3)
How peculiar is it then to discover that the presumed flag-bearer of Rationalist Jewish thought dismisses the Rambam's position oh-so-casually! But then again, while the Rambam was undoubtedly a Rationalist, he strictly operated within the confines of Jewish theology. As anyone even slightly familiar with Moreh Nevuchim knows, the Rambam used numerous pesukim and ma’amarei Chazal to support his philosophical positions. He regularly disagreed with the philosophers when he felt that their views diverged from those of the Torah. Nowhere did he suggest that the Nevi’im who wrote Nach or Chazal were devoted to "fluffy spirituality," while he propagated the correct, rationalist approach. The Rambam's genius lay in his ability to synthesize philosophy with Torah values. But when the two conflicted, philosophy was discarded, not the Torah. This is the essence of Rambam's Rationalism.
And this idea of self-introspection in times of tragedy was not the Rambam’s innovation either2. Aside from it being psukim in the Torah itself (see the quote from the Rambam above where he references this), Nach and Chazal are replete with literally hundreds of sources of the direct correlation between spiritual laxity and Divine retribution. And Chazal teach that no troubles that we encounter happen by chance, and that we are supposed examine our actions when we encounter suffering, and that Hashem especially brings suffering from laxity in Torah study3.
Given the above, if we were to encounter a scenario where there seems to be a spiked increase in terror attacks and tragic accidents within a short span of a few weeks, and it happened exactly when the Yeshivos and Kollelim are off for Pesach, and taking into account that Judaism gives special weight to neglect of Torah study; and we know that we are supposed to use our noggin and try and deduce in where we can improve in our Avodas Hashem, what in the world is “irrational” about connecting the dots and realizing that 2+2=4? Why on earth does the great Rationalist Natan think it is so ridiculous to suggest as such? To the best of my limited ability to reason, this appears to be the sole logical inference. Unless, of course, one simply does not believe in the Torah or that Torah protects, which is why Natan’s atheist commenters get such a kick out of the whole topic every time it comes up. But Natan adamantly assures us that he does believe in the Torah and its protection, going as far as to ban me for a week for merely suggesting that he perhaps be more cautious about the impression he gives off. So I am quite at a loss here in figuring out why R’ Edelstein’s conclusion is not the only logical one.
And what’s his point, anyways?
On a side note, why is Natan so preoccupied with this question? What is he trying to prove? Let’s say that some Chareidim don’t really believe that Torah protects. Ok. We’ll accept that. Does that now mean that what the Torah says isn’t true and Torah is ineffective as protection? Or in an extreme scenario, let’s take Natan’s rather delusional, er, rationalist perspective that all Chareidim don’t believe in the Torah’s protection, and R’ Edelstein just told his followers that they need to learn more now because he was bored during bein hazmanim, and R’ Zilberstein told the avreich not to buy a gun because he thought it would make an interesting story for his next book, and R’ Chaim Kanievksy told the yeshivos not to flee the south because he was trying to thin the Chareidi population to solve the housing crisis, and all the gedolim that have advocated for shortening or ending bein hazmanim was because they didn’t think it’s healthy for them to be outside during allergy season, and that the reason why so many rank and file Chareidim use their hard earned money to support Torah is not as a zechus for themselves but rather simply because they can’t sleep at night because their mattresses are too lumpy, and so on. But so what? They’re all WRONG.
Because the Torah says that it DOES protect, and we presumably believe in the Torah, including Natan who sincerely assures us that he really, really, believes in the Torah’s protection! And unbeknownst to the Chareidim, they are really providing protection to the nation, even though they think they are only pretending to think so for all sorts of bizarre reasons. So in this case, Natan would be correct and all the Chareidim would be 100% wrong. Yay, go Natan. You (finally) scored a point. But why is it so desperately important for him to prove that Chareidim really don’t believe in the Torah’s protection if we know that it protects?
And yes, contrary to what some may think, this even applies to calamities that befall an individual. Things don’t just happen. I hope to address this in depth in an upcoming post.
It turns out that this ‘shita’ of Natan runs very deep. My good friend
showed me that Natan is under the incredibly mistaken impression that the Rambam believed that there is no such thing as Divine punishment for one's actions. All punishment mentioned in the Torah is really only referring to the natural effect of one's deeds. For example, for not building a ma'akeh, one may fall off a roof. Or for not watching one's health, one may be afflicted by plague. Oh, and the Rambam in Hilchos Ta'anis? He does not really mean that we are supposed to repent and cry out to Hashem, rather he means we are supposed to be fasting to give us a sense of community and self-introspection so we can figure out what we are doing to physically endanger ourselves. I’m not being satirical here. This is literally what he says. And I guess there is no such thing as say, leprosy for lashon hara, or someone being punished for his sins by his children dying, or famine and plague for not keeping the parshos of arayos, or the Beis Hamikdash being destroyed because of idolatry and immorality. This astonishingly revisionist approach to Judaism is based off one out-of-context sentence from the Rambam in his letter to the Sages of Montpellier, and ignores basically the entire corpus of Jewish theology, as well as many statements from the Rambam himself, including in that very letter. Perhaps we will focus on this in a future post.
My biggest problem with his 'shitta' is the assumption that rationalism and mysticism are incompatible. There is nothing inherently irrational whatsoever in believing phenomena exist beyond human understanding/capability of description. It's all bizarre.
Absolutely love this post!