Part 3: The Intellectually Challenged Dinosaur

A review of Slifkin's "The Challenge of Creation"

This is a continuation of Reinterpretation of Creation and the Flood, Part 1. There is a Part 2 which will probably be posted next week, but we decided to skip to Part 3, in the spirit of אין מוקדם ומאוחר בתורה (the Torah is not always in order) and the month of Adar, ונהפוך הוא (it was reversed).

What we do NOT find problematic

Natan Slifkin, in his book Challenge of Creation attempts to deal with the issue of reconciliation of the Torah with the Latest and Greatest Scientific Evidence (TM). A good portion of the book is a collection of many non-literal, or partially non-literal explanations of the Creation narrative. This does not bother us in principle. As stated in Part 1, the Torah is basically open to interpretation, as long as the interpretation makes sense, is consistent with the Mesorah, and is consistent with the ideology of the Torah.

This is even the case for novel interpretations that do not exactly match those of Chazal’s. Indeed, Slifkin spends a good portion of the book trying to prove that he is allowed to interpret differently than earlier commentaries and Chazal, bringing many convoluted examples that he imagines we are forced to do so- their understanding of the kidneys, the firmament, geocentrism, extinction. All these “proofs” are unnecessary, all one needs to do is open a Ramban on the Torah. Unfortunately. however, for some very fundamental reasons, the entire book is extremely problematic, as we shall soon see.

Will this question kill you?

Is it a huge problem if you don’t understand the Creation narrative? Is it a huge problem if you don’t understand how it can be reconciled with the Latest and Greatest Scientific Evidence (TM)? Is that an insurmountable deal breaker for Judaism? Slifkin seems to think so. In Chapter 6, “Approaching Conflict”, he discusses why there is such a pressing need to answer this question. He is very unhappy with the classical approach of Judaism, that “You don’t die from a question”.¹ Slifkin acknowledges that unanswered questions shouldn’t necessarily cause somebody to abandon Judaism, but as he says, there are questions, and there are Questions. In his mind, the authenticity of Judaism is at stake if this particular Question goes unanswered. He goes so far as to compare Judaism to a cult:

Imagine if you were trying to deprogram someone has been sucked into a cult. When you point out to him the flaws in the cult's ideology, he replies "You don't die from a question"

We can already see that this book is not going to good places.

Of course, he is incorrect. As stated in Part 1, the entire Torah is an extremely difficult text that was designed to be interpreted by experts. In the case of Laws, the Torah states (Deut 17:9)

וּבָאתָ֗ אֶל־הַכֹּהֲנִים֙ הַלְוִיִּ֔ם וְאֶ֨ל־הַשֹּׁפֵ֔ט אֲשֶׁ֥ר יִהְיֶ֖ה בַּיָּמִ֣ים הָהֵ֑ם וְדָרַשְׁתָּ֙ וְהִגִּ֣ידוּ לְךָ֔ אֵ֖ת דְּבַ֥ר הַמִּשְׁפָּֽט׃

And you shall appear before the levitical priests, or the magistrate in charge at the time, and present your problem, and they will tell you the verdict.

and indeed, this is one of the bases of the Oral Torah. And regarding these laws, we still don’t understand many of them to this day, thus the thousands of ספקות (halachic questions that were undecided) that fill the Talmud and our halachic texts, and the countless hours spent by Torah scholars in the Beis Medrash trying to understand the fine details of the laws. If that is the case with the Laws, how much more so is it with Creation, which the Talmud states is one of the deepest mysteries of the Torah (Chagiga 11b)! How can we be so arrogant as to assume that we fully understand it, or that we need to fully understand it?

But let us go further. There are many more pressing issues that have perplexed everybody for as long as Judaism existed. For example צדיק ורע לו, רשע וטוב לו (the suffering of the righteous and the success of the wicked). The entire book of Job was devoted to this, as well as sections in several of the prophets, and very few people would say they know the answer. What about when Messiah will come, or how he will appear, or what will happen when he does? The Prophets are filled with many mysterious and seemingly conflicting predictions; can anybody say they have resolved all or even most of them? These are certainly in the category of Slifkin’s “Questions”.

And moving past the Torah, do we understand even a fraction of the world? Are there not thousands of questions that perplex scientists in every field, with every new discovery generating countless more questions? It is clear that unanswered “Questions” is both the rule of the Torah in particular, and the world in general. And how much more so is this with the Torah’s Creation narrative.

Creation was natural?

Slifkin writes at length in Chapter 3, “Miracles and Nature”, about various authorities, such as Rambam and Ralbag, who tried to avoid positing miracles wherever possible. The rationale is that once God created nature, His Creation is perfect, and He avoids changing it. As Slifkin imagines, this makes miracles problematic from even a theological perspective. He takes this so far as to interpret even the miracles of Exodus as natural, the fallacy of which should be obvious.

In Chapter 21, “Common Ancestry”, Slifkin attempts to show that this view applies not only to the natural world as we know it now, but should be extended to the very creation of that natural world in the beginning:

In other words, there are classical views about the nature of existence which lend themselves well to an evolutionary model. One is that which we have discussed above, the idea that God works through natural means wherever possible. According to this, it makes sense that God would have used a system of natural law to develop later creatures from earlier ones, rather than using special creation in each case…

In conclusion: The concept of common ancestry is well-supported by evidence; it is preferable from the perspective that God works within His laws of nature wherever possible….

The problem is, the application here makes no sense. The entire rationale given for minimization of miracles is that once the world was created, it was perfect, and God avoids changing it unnecessarily. How can anyone think that this applies as the world itself is being created? But when one understands Slifkin’s overall perspective as a “rationalist”, it makes complete sense. He rejects miracles not because of some philosophical reason that is totally inapplicable here, but because, as a so-called “rationalist”, he simply has a very difficult time accepting miracles in principle.

Slifkin’s rejection of the whole concept of interpretation

After bringing several non-literal explanations of the sequence of Creation, Slifkin writes at the end of Chapter 13:

There have been various ingenious attempts to make the content and sequence of Genesis concord with that of science, and approach known as “concordism”. Such efforts are, however, beset with serious difficulties, and do not maintain a viable interpretation of the text from an etymological, contextual, and philological standpoint…

What will Slifkin do with the interpretations of Chazal that Reuven never slept with his father’s wife (Shabbos 55b), that “an eye for an eye” is referring to monetary compensation (Baba Kama 83b), or that “they shall spread the sheet” is an allegory (Kesubos 47a)? Does he likewise find those problematic because they “do not maintain a viable interpretation of the text from an etymological, contextual, and philological standpoint”? As we shall see, the answer is almost certainly “yes”.

Slifkin writes further,

…If Genesis can only be reconciled with science via obscure theories, reference to irrelevant phenomena, drastic and very difficult textual reinterpretation, and ingenious intellectual gymnastic, then it is not a very impressive scientific account..

This line reveals what he thinks of the whole enterprise of interpretation -“intellectual gymnastics”, an implicit stab at the Tradition of Oral Torah, and all the efforts of the commentators throughout the ages. Also, since when was the objective of Genesis to be an “impressive scientific account”?

Slifkin brings several more explanations that interpret the Creation narrative conceptually, rather than chronologically, however, these on their own are apparently still too much “intellectual gymnastics” for him. So he finally settles upon his ideal solution that he imagines

...will provide a meaningful and reasonable explanation of the text, and that will not require any intellectual dishonesty or interpretive gymnastics in translating the text.

(Chapter 14, Departing from Concordism)

The Torah is fiction

Well, what is this wonderful approach? First, Slifkin has to tell us his perspective on the Talmudic dictum דברה תורה כלשון בני אדם, The Torah speaks in the language of people, which the Rambam uses to explain why the Torah speaks of God using corporeal imagery. According to Slifkin, this means not just that God speaks in the language of men, but will actually state their false beliefs as if they are true. In other words, the Torah will openly state falsehoods, that is, lie- for the benefit of people who already believe those untruths. He adduces support to this from Ibn Kaspi², and Rabbi Dr. Isadore Twerski’s explanation of his viewpoint³

We are not dealing merely with an unsophisticated or unrationalized view, but an intentionally, patently false view espoused by the masses and enshrined in Scripture. The view or statement need not be allegorized, merely recognized from what it is…Leshon bene adam is not just a carefully calculated concession to certain shortcomings of the masses, that is, their inability to think abstractly, but a wholesale adoption of mass views and local customs. . . . The Torah did not endorse or validate these views; it merely recorded them and a proper philosophic sensibility will recognize them.

So instead of “intellectual dishonesty or interpretive gymnastics in translating the text”, his preferred solution is that the Torah is simply lying! No interpretation or mental gymnastics needed! Of course, they are noble lies, the Torah is a “theological text” and is lying for the purpose of teaching theological truths about Creation.

Maybe the Torah isn’t so Divine after all

Not content with this, Slifkin goes further and opines on the composition of the Torah, casting doubt on the Divine origins of the Torah,⁴ and attempting to bring evidence that the Torah is mainly human fiction, adopted for theological lessons. Apparently, he feels that this re-attribution to human origins somehow softens the blow of his assertion that the Torah is fiction. But it has the opposite effect, solidifying the impression of Slifkin as somebody who simply rejects the Torah.

So in the end, after disparaging the whole enterprise of textual interpretation as “intellectual dishonesty or interpretive gymnastics”, a disdainful dismissal of millennia of Torah interpretation from Chazal and the many commentators that followed them, Slifkin instead asserts the Torah is simply telling false tales (albeit with noble intentions) while heavily downplaying its Divine origins. Needless to say, this is much worse than even the most forced interpretation, makes a complete mockery of the Torah, and will only convince those who already doubt the authenticity of the Torah in the first place, especially those inclined towards Biblical Criticism.

The pintele Yid

One caveat in all of this is that Slifkin is not a complete heretic in every respect. He clearly believes in Creation, at least as the original cause behind all of Existence. Perhaps this is a remnant of his religious upbringing, or the “pintele Yid” (Jewish spark in his soul).

Slifkin explains (Chapter 15, “Genesis as a Theological Text) the Creation narrative as a polemic against the prevailing idolatrous view in the region, that the elements of the world were formed by many different gods doing many different things. He understands (and interprets the Rambam as understanding) that the Six Days were not chronological but conceptual. As stated before, this by itself would not be necessarily problematic in our view, depending on the exact details. Alas, that was not enough for Slifkin.

The fundamental problem

The fundamental issue at the heart of this entire confused mess of a book is Slifkin’s secular viewpoint, which makes him extremely incredulous of anything supernatural, spiritual, or beyond human comprehension. This viewpoint is what prevents him from taking no for answer, from accepting that we simply don’t understand the Torah, from accepting the miraculous nature of Creation, and from accepting that the Torah’s narrative may be full of deep secrets that do not necessarily “maintain a viable interpretation of the text from an etymological, contextual, and philological standpoint” from a secular, academic perspective.

It is for this reason that although Slifkin acknowledges some sort of Creation, he must insist of interpreting the Creation narrative as a myth, a fiction, a lie, that was given the seal of approval in a perhaps not-so-Divine Torah. This, he imagines, is less forced, less dishonest, and more rational than admitting that the verses are actually speaking the truth, but demand interpretation. He brings plenty of opportunities to interpret the Torah in a way that affirms its truth, but rejects all of them. As Chazal tell us (Chagiga 3b) איזהו שוטה המאבד כל מה שנותנים לו, Who is a fool, he who discards what he is given. With Slifkin, this applies both to the interpretation of the Torah and the Torah itself.

It should be noted that these problems are not limited to Slifkin as an individual, but are symptomatic of the broader left-wing Modern Orthodox world, that treats the Torah as no better than a secular historical text, and God as some abstract philosophical idea. Thus, the popularity of the תנ”ך בגובה עינים (study of Tanach while ignoring the perspective of Chazal) method in that community, their dismissal of interpretations of Chazal, their embrace of Biblical Criticism, their academic approach to Talmud study, and their lax attitude towards mitzvah observance. They simply don’t see any קדושה (holiness) or depth to the Torah, and don’t view God as real. With an attitude like that, the results are not surprising.

We have touched upon what we believe are the fundamental problems of Slifkin’s perspective in the book. There are many other problems, like his arrogance towards Chazal, his disparagement of the concept of Mesorah, and his overconfidence in the abilities of science. We will, God willing, approach some of these subjects in future posts. In particular, the subject of science will be the subject of a post entitled "Towards a Healthy Skepticism of Science Without Descending into Empirical Nihilism".

1. Slifkin tries to demonstrate that this perspective is mistaken by showing how the Torah authorities throughout the ages tried to answer all manner of pressing questions, not falling back on “You don’t die from a question”. However, he fails to bring the thousands of times authorities simply had no answer and said צ”ע (the matter needs to be investigated further), and the thousands of ספקות (undecided halachic questions) in the Talmud and halachic texts. His reasoning is also faulty. There is a sample bias- of course somebody is more likely to write something if he has an answer than if he doesn’t!

2. Regarding the authority of Ibn Kaspi, see here http://onthisandonthat.blogspot.com/2011/12/ibn-kaspi-in-eyes-of-open-minded.html

3. Joseph Ibn Kaspi: Portrait of a Medieval Jewish Intellectual, (Cambridge, 1979), pp. 239-241

Slifkin also tries to support this view with statements from Rabbi Hirsch and Rabbi Kook to the effect that the Torah is not attempting to be scientifically accurate in its presentation. For example, Rabbi Hirsch notes that the firmament is not a solid dome, but the Torah referred to it that way because that is how the sky appears to men. However, anybody can see that this is a distortion. Rabbi Hirsch is saying the Torah refers to it like that because practically speaking, that is how it appears. This is a very practical idea, like when I tell somebody to drive straight along the highway, not worrying that the highway usually has some curvature. There is no comparison to the quotation from Prof. Twersky, that the Torah is actually telling noble lies.

4. There is the mandatory reference to Dr. Marc Shapiro’s malodorous work, The Limits of Orthodox Theology, and his attempt to show that there was a tradition of medieval Jewish authorities who felt the Torah was not necessarily of Mosaic origin, and was publicly amended by prophets whenever they felt like it. There will be, God willing, another essay showing the fundamental mistake in this reasoning.