Reheating the Bath

Guest post by Dovid

Our reader Dovid has submitted a series of five articles of his musings. The opinions expressed in the articles are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of Irrationalist Modoxism. The following is the first article. Enjoy!

A Chareidi/Yeshivishe Guy Explains his Perspective on Torah and Science to the Unaffiliated

Prologue

The Gemara in Nedarim (66b) relates an unusual story:

There was a certain Babylonian who went up to Eretz Yisrael and married a woman there. He said to her: Cook two lentils i.e., some lentils, for me. She cooked exactly two lentils for him. He grew angry with her. On the following day, so that she would not repeat what she had done, he said to her: Cook a se’a [geriva] for me, intending: A large amount. She cooked an actual se’a for him, far more than what one person could eat. He said to her: Go and bring me two butzinei, intending small gourds, as butzinei are small gourds in the Aramaic dialect spoken in Babylonia. She went and brought him two lamps [sheraggei], called butzinei in the Aramaic dialect spoken in Eretz Yisrael. In anger, he said to her: Go and break them on the head of the bava, intending the gate, as bava means a gate in the Aramaic dialect spoken in Babylonia. She did not recognize this word. At that time, the Sage Bava ben Buta was sitting as a judge at the gate. She went and broke them on his head, as his name was Bava. He said to her: What is this you have done? She said to him: This is what my husband commanded me to do. He said: You fulfilled your husband’s desire, may the Omnipresent bring forth from you two sons, corresponding to the two candles, like Bava ben Buta.

Chareidim don’t speak the same language as the rest of the world.¹An outsider may mistakenly think that this is just a cultural difference, in very much the same way that “ghetto English” is different than “refined English”. But in truth it’s deeper than just a different language. The reason why we have a different language is because with our language we are expressing a whole different type of information. English may be great for expressing scientific ideas and modern thoughts, but our dialect is great at expressing the way the world really works. For example, while “Hashem” technically means the same thing as “God”, it totally doesn’t. “Hashem” or “Ribono shel Olam” carries with it a yiraas shamayim, unlike its Christian, secular counterpart, which is cold and dry. In English we are forced to use words like “mysticism”, “spiritual manipulations”, “upper worlds” etc.; in yeshivish we talk about “olamos ha’elyonim” and “connection with HKB’H”² which carry a very different meaning.

An outsider, even if he is within the koislei beis medrash, can miss the entire message. He hears what sounds like a different language and misses the meaning behind it. When he hears the words “oilamois ha’elyoinim”, to him it is the same as “upper worlds”.³ The difference is that the language we speak has the understood background of Hashem at the center, while to them, though He created us and He is really important, “He wants us to do Mitzvot (Mitzvoth?) to perfect our nature and become decent people”. There is no “Elokim Chai” in such a life.

Bridging the gap is nearly impossible, because culture has a lot to do with it. When living in the beis medrash – where Hashem’s Torah is everything - a lot of the questions fall away immediately. The very culture and language of the beis medrash are permeated with HKB’H. When entering the cold world of science where they are speaking a different language, one is immersing himself in an entirely different world (hod).

To be bilingual is one thing; to be bicultural is a bigger feat. But to be bi-worldly is a contradiction. The more you are here, the less you are there and vice versa. Each one pulls away from the other. This is why the Rema made a cheirim on learning secular studies until twenty five. First, he understood, get immersed in the world of Torah - let that world be your reality. Once the mentch is a Torah-imbibed mentch, he can learn secular studies with the proper framework.

Our goal is to try to cultivate science into the Torah framework/culture, to show that there is a way (the way?) to understand everything from our world view. I hope that there is something for the secularly influenced Jew to gain - but if nothing else, at least they should be able to see where we are coming from. We will show iyH that there are no contradictions between the scientific world and ours when in proper context. Maybe, without the need for apologetics, the “rationalist” can join us in the “upper worlds” and hear the “קול הש' בכח”.

1. After writing this, I discovered that happygoluckypersonage already made this point in this post.

2. Yes - the so called “spiritual manipulations” are really just about Hashem’s connection to us! Those who so clearly don’t understand think that they have a right to “not accept” these ideas. Do they mean that they “don’t accept” connecting to HKB’H? Surely not - they just like denying things that they don’t understand. By calling them “spiritual manipulations” they get to discount what now sounds silly. This is our very point.

3. He may even equate us to when a Christian will talk about “Yushke” (in their vernacular, shem rishaim yirkav) which to them is also full of meaning. “Clearly it is indoctrination pumping meaning into the words.” R’L.