What Would Rabbeinu Nissim Do?

More adventures in Rationality

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, Natan Slifkin pretended to care what rishonim think.

In fact, back in the day his blog carried the subtitle "exploring the legacy of rationalist rishonim" or some such. Well, time has moved on, and so has Natan's worldview (a development not very surprising to the prescient gedolim who saw his early deviations for the seed that they were). By now he proudly discounts any significance to any point in mesoras haTorah, and even the immutable truth of Torah itself, because today we know better. And yet he insists on being validated as an insider, a legitimate perspective within a tradition that he assumes has missed the boat on every major point of interpretation for several thousand years.

To be sure, the juggling act does get confusing at times. Take his latest conundrum: Rishonim disagree over how to explain the Ark's ability to contain all of the animals. Whereas Ramban passes this off as a miraculous phenomenon, the Ran attempts to explain it in a natural way. How then, wonders Slifkin, would the Ran deal with all of the other logistical questions about the flood narrative?

According to Slifkin, we now know that there are just too many difficulties with ascribing an all-natural explanation to the story of Noach. As such we have two choices: faced with the new problems, we can assume Ran would change tracks and agree with Ramban that there are many more miracles that the Torah doesn't emphasize. Or he would change tracks and agree with Natan Slifkin that the Torah isn't true.

In other words, we're down to what would Ran do if the truth of Torah were pitted against the truth of Rationalism, and in Slifkin's mind it's no contest. In fact, he's quite sure that even Ramban would change to the Slifkin model once he saw all the facts. I mean, how many miracles can there be already?

In the rationalist universe, this is called logic.

If you find this construct rather unwieldy, Dr Slifkin instructs you to "keep your opinion to yourself" unless you're heartless enough to make people feel that Torah denial has no place in Torah Judaism. Very well, we'll reserve our reservations for another time¹. For now we'll suffice with one meta-question: why does Slifkin think this machlokes is such a big deal?

Let me explain. There exists an approach in rishonim to ascribe as few things to miracles as possible. This comes from an understanding of it being the ratzon Hashem to generally keep tevah running its course unless absolutely necessary.

This is not a theological position. It's not even a hashkafic position. It is simply a certain understanding of how Hashem chooses to run His world.

None of these Rishonim believe that Hashem couldn't have chosen a different system if He had so wanted. There's nothing less nor more intrinsically "rational" about the infinite omnipotent Deity choosing one system of hashgacha over another; the question simply is which system He happens to have chosen. And some rishonim conclude, based on their internal understanding of ratzon Hashem in this world, that this is the system He chose.

Others disagree of course. Many rishonim see the bending of what we call the "laws" of nature to have been a regular feature of the world of the Avos, Tanach, and to a lesser degree Chazal. Based on their own internal study, they have a different understanding of hanhagas haBorei.

This is a fairly technical disagreement, and should hold little interest for anyone other than the dedicated student of scholarly intricacies. As far as we're concerned, all sides agree that miracles are possible, are in fact just as easy and plausible for the Borei Hakol to do as it is for Him to run the tevah program, and inarguably did happen in many instances throughout the biblical period. They merely disagree on some comparatively peripheral points of interpretation².

As such, Dr Slifkin's opening ultimatum is incomprehensible. What does it mean that someone is only willing to be part of the religious Jewish community if G-d chooses to do less miracles not more? Why in the world? In what way would G-d's executive policy decisions affect the reality of His existence?

Or is it because you refuse to accept that G-d can do as many miracles as he wants? Well then, with our deepest regrets, you're outside the fold anyways. Judaism believes in an all-powerful G-d who can do whatever He jolly well pleases, whether we want him to or think he should or not. Someone who is uncomfortable with that does not believe in Judaism³.

What's left is the question of what Hashem happens to have done in the Ark, but that has zero practical relevance to a belief system. Maybe it was all done naturally maybe it wasn't, but theoretically, if there'd be no other answer to the Ark 'problems' (or any other 'problem' within Torah) other than to say the supernaturalist Rishonim must have been right after all and miracles were flying right and left, then that would be Judaism's answer. And there's no logical reason for a believing Jew to be any less 'comfortable' with this than the alternative.

So go ahead and study Torah; that's what it's there for. Organize and categorize the full spectrum of interpretations of Parshas Noach. And of Parshas Tzav. And of Bava Basra. It's our purpose in this world, delve into it by day and by night. But this business of holding Torah hostage to the specific hanhagos Hashem you are willing to "accept" smacks of bullying. And the unilateral unwillingness to accept a Deity unless he acts as little like a deity as possible seems arbitrary. As well as, frankly, downright irrational.

1. Not wanting to be mean, we won't discuss [here] our theological problems with Dr. Slifkin's solutions. However, his problems themselves do call for some comment.

The flaw in Slifkin's analysis is that virtually every 'new' problem he comes up with are things the Ramban and Ran were well aware of. Ventilation and lighting in the teiva. Animal survival outside their habitat. The logistics of the animals getting home after the flood. These are all questions just as easily thought of in the 13th century as in the 21st. I'd imagine that Ramban and Ran don't stress them because they don't consider it very unreasonably miraculous for Hashem to have worked out these issues for Noach some way or other, whether it's something we know how to do or not. Not every G-dly helping hand is an out and out 'miracle' that needs to take up major interpretive space. The issue of fitting a big thing into a small vessel gets attention because it is an intrinsic miracle – not just a logistical inconvenience but a logical impossibility whose accomplishment defies human comprehension. Which is why the Ramban makes sure to point out that this is nonetheless a recognized and precedented miraculous feat (Slifkin's assumption that the Ramban's elaborating on this type of miracle indicates he holds this to be the only type Hashem would do is too ridiculous to require exegesis).

The question from the 'unemphasized miracle' of the animals getting around after the flood is particularly silly. They got to the teiva on their own - which Slifkin concedes must take a 'miracle' - and the Torah says so (the Ramban to 7:15 also points this out, tangentially to a separate issue. Note how he mentions it as a blithe matter of fact, not as a speculative “answer” required by a difficult "question"). However they got there, they got back. The Torah doesn't emphasize the miracle of them getting there; why must it emphasize the miracle of them getting back?

Nor is it likely that the Rishonim were unaware of the logistical problems of animals (and for that matter plants) of different temperaments traversing the earth, as well as crossing the sea to every far flung island, despite them being unaware about the kangaroos of Australia. Whether Hashem decided to just plunk them there when no-one was looking, or if He orchestrated some natural process of transporting them there and what exactly that process might have been, is not really a pressing topic of Torah study. As it is not a part of the flood narrative there’s no earthly reason why the Torah should feel the need to mention it one way or the other. It's worthwhile to note that science doesn't either 'know' how animals traverse uninhabitable regions. How the original flora and fauna reached the Galapagos Islands, for example, is basically a mystery, albeit not one that troubles too many people. Kashya oif ah maiseh. They're there, they got there somehow; make something up.

Slifkin's other flood problem that requires a miracle to solve has to do with the current academic orthodoxy which assumes that some cultures go back uninterrupted to before the time period of the flood. Surely, had they known this, Ramban and Ran wouldn't speculate such a great miracle.

It's revealing that Slifkin ascribes the possibility of inaccuracies or confusion in the academic assumptions to the status of a miracle greater than fitting a square foot object into half a square foot of space (and, of course, "far greater than kriyas Yam Sof"). What's needed to solve this particular problem is not so much a miracle, but rather an adjustment of the academic assumptions. If that's a supernatural event, then supernatural events have taken place before our very eyes in about every generation since Galileo.

2. Indeed, one of the most dire allegations leveled at the Rambam by his opponents was that his approach smacked of a worldview that doesn't just believe Hashem didn't do too many miracles, but that He couldn't. Those who would seize on the Rambam's approach must explain how this accusation is not true, not assume that it is.

3. Without a doubt, the expectation that a religious community "not disqualify approaches they see as theologically problematic" because then people who insist on those approaches will "feel like they're not part of that religious community" has got to be one the most dizzying circularities we've tried to wrap our heads around in a very long time.