Dr. Daniel Lasker gave a second lecture, while he was in Columbus, comparing Rabbi Judah Halevi to Maimondes. Here are my notes; as always, all mistakes are mine.
There is a trend in academia to make everything applied that one should not just be sitting in an ivory tower. This is difficult for Jewish thought. Perhaps we can create nano Jewish thinkers. The purpose of this lecture is to present two Jewish thinkers and consider how they can be applied.
Judah Halevi was born somewhere in Spain around 1075. He left Spain at an advanced age for Israel. We are not certain if he ever made it. According to the legend he was run over by an Arab horseman. There are lots of problems with this story. We do not hear about it until several centuries later. Also Israel was under Christian rule during this time. Halevi wrote poems, but also a work of philosophy, the Kuzari. This is a fictional account about the conversion of the Khazars, a group of people living around Azerbaijan, who converted around the eight century. Maimonides also was born in Spain. He fled the Almohads and ended up in Fez where he may have lived for a time as a Muslim. He traveled to Israel but was unable to make it there so he moved to Egypt where he worked as a doctor.
In looking at these two models of thought, we tend to see them as opposed to each other. Maimonides was the super-rationalist and Halevi was the anti-rationalist. Setting them up as two separate models is unfair as they both came from similar assumptions. They were both concerned with reconciling religion with philosophy. For Halevi, the religion of Judaism was an empirical truth. If philosophy contradicts it then we require a new philosophy. For Maimonides, philosophy has to agree to the truth of Judaism but not literally. One should reinterpret Judaism in light of philosophy. An example of this is anthropomorphism. Maimonides was successful in changing Judaism to reject the notion that God has a body, regardless of what the Bible says because it is a philosophically untenable position. Maimonides also insisted that Hosea did not literally marry a prostitute, because that would be dishonorable for a prophet. Where one draws the line is open-ended and depends on one’s allegiance to philosophy and the literal text of the Bible.
Why is Judaism a divine religion? According to Halevi, the real proof for Judaism comes from history as opposed to a simple rational religion. R. Abraham Ibn Ezra, in his commentary on the Ten Commandments, notes that Halevi asked him why the Ten Commandments begin with referring to the exodus and not creation. Ibn Ezra gives a different explanation than Halevi. For Halevi Judaism is true because 600,000 men saw the revelation at Sinai. For Maimonides prophecy is a natural process to pick up the divine message which is constantly broadcasted. God does not change; how one receives it depends on the person. God does not choose people to be prophets. Prophets provide a framework for human society. Humans require such a framework because humans vary in their behavior in ways unlike animals. Thus, all law systems ultimately come from God. The laws of the bible are different from the bylaws of Columbus in that the Bible helps one refine the intellect and obtain immortality.
What is the nature of God and how does one come to know God? For Halevi, the God of Abraham is experienced while the God of Aristotle is understood. One might die for the God of Abraham, not the God of Aristotle. One can only love the God of Abraham. For Maimonides, the God of Abraham is the God of Aristotle. The beginning of Maimonides’ Mishnah Torah is a description of God based on Aristotle. Then Maimonides immediately goes to talking about sanctifying God’s name.
Halevi believed that Jews were intrinsically different from gentiles. This is based on the hierarchy of nature. He did this because he needed to explain why only Jews are prophets. Halevi went so far as to argue that even converts cannot be prophets. Maimonides believed that Jews were different because they observed the Torah. This gives them a better ability to understand the divine realm. Halevi saw Jews as having different hardware. For Maimonides, it is a matter of the software.
Today we have this struggle between science and religion. Maimonides teaches that one follows science wherever it leads. Halevi stressed more the actual text even if it has to be taken allegorically. There is also the question of how one argues for religion. Maimonides' attempt to prove Judaism from the content would have a greater chance of success than a simple historical argument. One last thing is Jewish ethnocentricity. Halevi faced dominant Christian and Muslim religion, which argued for their strength. Halevi needed to therefore argue from Jewish weaknesses and Jewish willingness to sacrifice for their faith. Nowadays we are operating from more of a position of strength it may be time to move away from this point of view toward a more Maimonidean view.
Showing posts with label Kuzari. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Kuzari. Show all posts
Thursday, May 19, 2011
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
My Ironic Jewish Journey
On the Contrary has a post up about "Ironic Orthodoxy," outlining a form of Orthopraxy, which, while skirting the boundaries of traditional belief is deeply committed to Jewish practice and is fairly knowledgeable in terms of Jewish texts.
The Ironic Orthodox generation is the generation that comes after the Great Post-1967 Orthodox Awakening. The Ironic Orthodox are largely day-school and yeshiva educated. With their grandparents they share a certain comfort in their own Orthodox skin; to them, Orthodoxy is familiar, natural, and organizes their lives. With their parents they share a familiarity with the world of Jewish learning and are even able to access that learning to a large degree.
The Ironic Orthodox generation does not buy into the apologetics: not about the status of women, not about the integrity of the transmission of the Oral Law, not about the "timelessness" of obviously time-bound religious laws, customs, and ideas, etc. This generation is hard to inspire; its demeanor is skeptical and ironic, somewhat aloof and dispassionate. Their irony is not a dramatic irony - like Statler and Waldorf observing and criticizing the show yet remaining very much a part of it - but a jocular or sarcastic attitude or perhaps even a post-irony that simultaneously adheres to and mocks traditional religious structures. Yet it's not a bitter or angry mocking. It seems to be more of a taking-for-granted of life's absurdities and of the failure of ideology to explain or animate the full gamut of practice. It does not necessarily advocate or seek change.
The most strident example of this sort of thinking on the Jewish Blogosphere is Modern Orthoprax, who denounces traditional claims of God giving the Torah and the possibility of proving the existence of God yet claims to be traditionally observant.
In my own way, I see myself as falling under this category, if in a more moderate vein than Modern Orthoprax. While Modern Orthoprax comes and flat-out opposes divine claims for the origin of the Torah and proof for the existence of God, I believe that one can make a very plausible case for God's existence and that actively accepting God's existence is less problematic than assuming that he does not exist and I even hold out some hope for their being some historical truth to the Exodus narrative and the revelation at Sinai. That being said, I actively accept the fact that we live in a post-Enlightenment world and am not about to ignore the fact that the Enlightenment happened. To paraphrase Dr. Alan Brill, I am not about to rewrite Saadiah Gaon and the Kuzari in plain high school English as if there never was a Hume or a Kant. This means that all attempts to claim that God exists as an unchallengeable fact are out. For example, in a post-Darwinian world one can no longer simply trot out the argument from design as an end to all argument. Regardless of whether you believe in evolution, Darwinian evolution defeats the argument from design simply by existing as a plausible theory. All the intelligent design arguments in the world are not going to change the fact that there is an alternative to theistic creation. Thus, while our intelligent designer might very well exist, he can no longer be accepted as unchallengeable fact. Similarly with biblical criticism, one might be able to produce an army of Rabbi Joseph Hertzes to answer the arguments of Julius Wellhausen and his intellectual descendants (something that Orthodoxy has not done) but it will not change the fact that there is now an alternative to accepting the Bible as the literal word of God.
In a sense, faith is like innocence, once exposed to an alternative and made open to doubt something has been lost even if outward behavior remains the same. The child given a decent suit of clothes, a wallet full of cash, and left to spend the night on the doorstep of a brothel is going to lose his innocence even if he does hold onto his virtue. For this reason, there is a certain logic to the Haredi attempt to hold onto the faith and innocence of their members even if it is futile.
As I said before, I still see the debate for God as being in favor of God even if by a smaller margin and even if it is more the God of the philosophers and not the God of Abraham. The God of Abraham might exist, but to believe in him requires absolute faith. The very act of doubting him changes the relationship to one with a philosopher God. Similarly with the Bible, it requires absolute faith. The very act of putting it before the bar of critical analysis changes the relationship and, whether you like it or not, it makes you one of the skeptics.
In the end, I like to think of myself as a theistic ethical humanist (I believe that intelligent life, human or otherwise, has value, that one has ethical obligations to humans as part of a universal law placed into our hearts by a universal lawgiver), who has jumped on board the train of Hirschian Judaism and managed to make himself comfortable. I still hold out some hope for the Bible to be the true word of God and for the Exodus to have happened in a direct literal sense but I accept the reality that I cannot take it as a given. The evidence is strong enough against it that it cannot be used as a foundation for living one's life. If I did not strongly believe in God, I probably would abandon Jewish practice. As a believer in God, though, I seek some form of practice to relate to him. Judaism, even as the creation of Jewish philosophers, would still be better than any religion that I might decide to make up for myself; our Jewish philosophers can still offer tradition and community. Even if I were trying to create my own religion, it would probably end up looking a lot like Judaism anyway, just without an elaborate mythology.
As a Muppets fan, I accept for myself the role of being Judaism's Statler and Waldorf as a mark of honor (Unlike most Ironic Jews, I am theatrical and love the dramatic). If I am a heretic, so be it. I still wish to be part of the show.
Monday, March 29, 2010
The Yeshiva World on Trial: Some Thoughts on the Search Committee
I just finished reading Rabbi Marc Angel’s short novel, the Search Committee, which Chaviva was kind enough to send to me. This was certainly not a great novel, though it was entertaining and I think it could serve as a good conversation starter. I, therefore, recommend it and wish to say a few things about it. This is a rare creation, a Modern Orthodox novel. (Naomi Ragen and Michael Schweitzer would be other examples of this genre.) One of the weaknesses of the Modern Orthodox world is that it has not been diligent in putting out Modern Orthodox books, whether fiction or non-fiction. Forget about the secular world, this puts us at a disadvantage when it comes to Haredim, who have not held back from putting out works pushing for their brand of Judaism.
The premise of the Search Committee is a board of trustees looking to appoint the next Rosh Yeshiva (head) of the aptly named Yeshivas Lita. Lita is the colloquial term for Lithuania and this yeshiva is meant as a representative of the Ashkenazi Lithuanian Yeshiva tradition transplanted onto American soil. The two candidates are Rav Shimshon Grossman and Rav David Mercado. The two represent different ideological and sociological sides. Rav Grossman is the son of the previous Rosh Yeshiva, he was born into the Lithuanian system, believes the job is his almost by divine right, and is a staunch conservative, rejecting all innovations. Rav Mercado is an outsider; he comes from a traditional background but did not start learning Talmud until he was in college. Furthermore, he is not Ashkenazi at all but descended from Turkish Sephardim. While he is also a product of the Yeshivas Lita and has great respect for the previous Rosh Yeshiva, he sees weaknesses in the system and the need for certain changes, particularly in terms of openness to the outside world and secular subjects. (He reminded me of Michael Makovi minus the radical politics.)
In truth, the book, despite its heading, is less a novel than a philosophical dialogue in the tradition of Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari. In this case, though, Rabbi Angel has the characters speak, not to each other, but to the silent members of the board, presumably the reader. The book offers a lineup of pairs of speakers in favor of the two candidates. First, there are the candidates themselves, followed by their wives, two rabbis in the yeshiva, two students, and finally two donors. As with most philosophical dialogues, the author’s position is never in doubt. This is Rabbi Angel’s polemic, not only against Haredim but also, as a Sephardi, against the Ashkenazi culture that has come to dominate Orthodox Judaism. I am, of course, in complete sympathy with Rabbi Angel’s position. Even if my family are Ashkenazi Jews from Hungary and Lithuania, my sympathies are with Sephardim. I even have a good excuse for this. The person I am named after, my great-great-grandfather Reb Benzion Shapiro, was an Ashkenazi who joined up with the Sephardi community in Jerusalem in the early twentieth century and served as a translator and reader for one of the leading Sephardi kabbalists.
The speeches of Rav Grossman and his wife are complete satire. They are entertaining to read, but I hold out the probably naïve belief that no Haredi rabbi would come out and speak to a board the way that they do. Of course, following the Poe Law, one can never satirize religious fundamentalists since there is going to be someone in a position of power and influence who actually fits the joke. Whether or not there are some Haredi rabbis who secretly would love the chance to do what Rav Grossman does is a separate issue. The one empathetic pro-Rav Grossman character is the donor, Clyde Robinson, who speaks powerfully about his father’s guilt over having his store open on the Sabbath. This, though, is once again an opportunity for Rabbi Angel to stick it to the Haredi world as, ironically, Mr. Robinson is not observant and all of his children are intermarried. He simply funds the yeshiva as a means of assuaging his own guilt as to not leading an observant life.
In contrast, the Mercado side gives Rabbi Angel the chance to preach his own worldview and he gives his speeches to characters that are all eminently likable. Rav Mercado is followed by his wife, who is a Greek Orthodox convert to Judaism, with a sappy but cute family story. There is also the speech by their donor, Esther Neuhaus, a diamond dealer from a German Jewish background, the one branch of Ashkenazic Jewry that Rabbi Angel admires. She challenges the yeshiva with the economic facts on the ground as to how they intend to continue to support themselves, particularly if follow Rav Grossman’s lead.
Unlike most dialogues, Rabbi Angel allows the opposition to win and has the board appoint Rav Grossman. This allows Rabbi Angel to have more fun with his character as Rav Grossman proceeds to fire not only Rav Mercado, but the entire board as well for daring to think they had any role to play in the selection at all. Rav Mercado gets to kindly tell the board that they made their bed and are free to lie in it and that in the meantime he and his wife are taking their kids to Turkey to see the island where their ancestors lived and that he was planning on moving to Jerusalem to start his own yeshiva.
I think this book would make a very good Jewish day school assembly project. We could have the students in the audience as the teachers, playing the various roles, come up and present their pieces. Each presenter would end by taking questions from the audience. At the end, the students would get to play the role of the search committee and cast their votes. For this to work in any meaningful way, though, we would need to make the Grossman side at least vaguely plausible.
The premise of the Search Committee is a board of trustees looking to appoint the next Rosh Yeshiva (head) of the aptly named Yeshivas Lita. Lita is the colloquial term for Lithuania and this yeshiva is meant as a representative of the Ashkenazi Lithuanian Yeshiva tradition transplanted onto American soil. The two candidates are Rav Shimshon Grossman and Rav David Mercado. The two represent different ideological and sociological sides. Rav Grossman is the son of the previous Rosh Yeshiva, he was born into the Lithuanian system, believes the job is his almost by divine right, and is a staunch conservative, rejecting all innovations. Rav Mercado is an outsider; he comes from a traditional background but did not start learning Talmud until he was in college. Furthermore, he is not Ashkenazi at all but descended from Turkish Sephardim. While he is also a product of the Yeshivas Lita and has great respect for the previous Rosh Yeshiva, he sees weaknesses in the system and the need for certain changes, particularly in terms of openness to the outside world and secular subjects. (He reminded me of Michael Makovi minus the radical politics.)
In truth, the book, despite its heading, is less a novel than a philosophical dialogue in the tradition of Judah ha-Levi’s Kuzari. In this case, though, Rabbi Angel has the characters speak, not to each other, but to the silent members of the board, presumably the reader. The book offers a lineup of pairs of speakers in favor of the two candidates. First, there are the candidates themselves, followed by their wives, two rabbis in the yeshiva, two students, and finally two donors. As with most philosophical dialogues, the author’s position is never in doubt. This is Rabbi Angel’s polemic, not only against Haredim but also, as a Sephardi, against the Ashkenazi culture that has come to dominate Orthodox Judaism. I am, of course, in complete sympathy with Rabbi Angel’s position. Even if my family are Ashkenazi Jews from Hungary and Lithuania, my sympathies are with Sephardim. I even have a good excuse for this. The person I am named after, my great-great-grandfather Reb Benzion Shapiro, was an Ashkenazi who joined up with the Sephardi community in Jerusalem in the early twentieth century and served as a translator and reader for one of the leading Sephardi kabbalists.
The speeches of Rav Grossman and his wife are complete satire. They are entertaining to read, but I hold out the probably naïve belief that no Haredi rabbi would come out and speak to a board the way that they do. Of course, following the Poe Law, one can never satirize religious fundamentalists since there is going to be someone in a position of power and influence who actually fits the joke. Whether or not there are some Haredi rabbis who secretly would love the chance to do what Rav Grossman does is a separate issue. The one empathetic pro-Rav Grossman character is the donor, Clyde Robinson, who speaks powerfully about his father’s guilt over having his store open on the Sabbath. This, though, is once again an opportunity for Rabbi Angel to stick it to the Haredi world as, ironically, Mr. Robinson is not observant and all of his children are intermarried. He simply funds the yeshiva as a means of assuaging his own guilt as to not leading an observant life.
In contrast, the Mercado side gives Rabbi Angel the chance to preach his own worldview and he gives his speeches to characters that are all eminently likable. Rav Mercado is followed by his wife, who is a Greek Orthodox convert to Judaism, with a sappy but cute family story. There is also the speech by their donor, Esther Neuhaus, a diamond dealer from a German Jewish background, the one branch of Ashkenazic Jewry that Rabbi Angel admires. She challenges the yeshiva with the economic facts on the ground as to how they intend to continue to support themselves, particularly if follow Rav Grossman’s lead.
Unlike most dialogues, Rabbi Angel allows the opposition to win and has the board appoint Rav Grossman. This allows Rabbi Angel to have more fun with his character as Rav Grossman proceeds to fire not only Rav Mercado, but the entire board as well for daring to think they had any role to play in the selection at all. Rav Mercado gets to kindly tell the board that they made their bed and are free to lie in it and that in the meantime he and his wife are taking their kids to Turkey to see the island where their ancestors lived and that he was planning on moving to Jerusalem to start his own yeshiva.
I think this book would make a very good Jewish day school assembly project. We could have the students in the audience as the teachers, playing the various roles, come up and present their pieces. Each presenter would end by taking questions from the audience. At the end, the students would get to play the role of the search committee and cast their votes. For this to work in any meaningful way, though, we would need to make the Grossman side at least vaguely plausible.
Monday, August 10, 2009
Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies: Hebrew Bibliography in Early Modern Europe
Adam Shear – Reuchlin and the Categorization of Jewish Literature circa 1500
How did Early Modern Jews organize books? How did such categories affect how the books were treated? Such a study should reveal something about the mental framework of those who used them. One place to look are lists of books whether Jewish nor non-Jewish. These lists, though, are not divided by categories. Historians are left using modern categories. Using our modern categories can obscure the relationship between these books. All historical research involves translation, but there is still a need to understand things as people at the time understood them. The Christian Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin responded to Johannes Pfefferkorn, a convert from Judaism, who had told the emperor that Jewish literature contained damaging material to Christians. Reuchlin defended the Talmud and Jewish rights. According to Reuchlin, Jews had legal protection and that furthermore their works benefited Christians. Reuchlin offers the earliest bibliographical scheme for Jewish books, going from most authoritative to least authoritative.
Holy Scripture – This carries the highest authority.
Talmud – Reuchlin makes no mention of the Mishnah nor does mention the Oral Law. He simply views the Talmud as exegesis on the Bible. As a Christian he was not about to lend any extra authority to the Talmud as having any basis in a tradition. This stance, though, also helps when dealing with anti-Christian statements. Reuchlin could argue that such statements were not intrinsic to Judaism.
Kabbalah - This was not something that Pfefferkorn or the Cologne theologians were familiar with. This had more to do with Reuchlin’s interests.
Commentaries – These, Reuchlin points out, are not binding, like the Talmud.
Midrash and Sermons – Reuchlin removes Midrash as a category of series of authority and places it on the same level of medieval sermons. There is no mention of Jewish liturgy.
Philosophy
Poetry, fables – These are deemed by Reuchlin as whimsical. Even the Jews, he claims, do not take them seriously. Reuchlin places the Nizzahon and Toldot Yeshu in this category. He even makes the claim that the Jews forbid these books themselves. Reuchlin may have been a naive sap but a very canny lawyer.
As Yaacov Deutsch argues, this is a period in which Christians, particularly converts, begin to offer descriptions of what Jews do. There is a parallel to the Barcelona debate of 1263. Reuchlin seems to engage in both sides of the Barcelona Debate. Like Nachmonides he tried to limit authority of midrashic literature. On the other hand he wished to give a Christian interpretation of Jewish texts.
(Dr. Shear is the author of the Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity and the Tea, Lemon, Old Books.)
Stephen G. Burnett – Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s Bibliotheca Rabbinica (1645) and Seventeenth - Century Jewish Bibliography
The Christian Hebraist Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s (1576 – 1651) bibliography of Jewish books, Biblia Rabbinica, is often criticized for repeating the errors of Johannes Buxtorf and adding his own. Plantavit is still valuable as an example of this period where knowledge of Judaism growing because of converts and because of more Judaic libraries. Plantavit lead a dramatic life with two theological careers. He was born into a Hugonaut family and trained as a Protestant theologian. He converted to Catholicism after he already had a degree in theology. Interested in Hebrew, Plantavit studied with Leone Modena. Modena encouraged him to start his own Hebrew library. Modena may have done this out of self interest as he was a book seller. Plantavit also studied under Domenico Gerosolimitano, the converted Jew who served as the chief censor for the Catholic Church. (See Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s The Censor, the Editor, and the Text.)
Biblia Rabbinica was intended to replace Buxtorf’s work. Such a bibliography served a Catholic polemical purposes. In a post Index world, Catholics needed a guide as to what books were permitted to read and quote. Plantavit owned over one hundred and eighty books out of eight hundred books he listed. He also owned a copy of the Jerusalem Talmud, even though he does not list it. This book was banned; Plantavit was more interested in telling other people what to read than in following his own advice. While Plantavit had Buxtorf outnumbered by two to one, the younger Johannes Buxtorf put out an updated version of his father’s book five years earlier. This had over a thousand Hebrew books, making Plantavit’s book outdated from the start. Between the two of them, Buxtorf and Plantavit only listed about a quarter of the Hebrew books printed.
How did Early Modern Jews organize books? How did such categories affect how the books were treated? Such a study should reveal something about the mental framework of those who used them. One place to look are lists of books whether Jewish nor non-Jewish. These lists, though, are not divided by categories. Historians are left using modern categories. Using our modern categories can obscure the relationship between these books. All historical research involves translation, but there is still a need to understand things as people at the time understood them. The Christian Hebraist Johannes Reuchlin responded to Johannes Pfefferkorn, a convert from Judaism, who had told the emperor that Jewish literature contained damaging material to Christians. Reuchlin defended the Talmud and Jewish rights. According to Reuchlin, Jews had legal protection and that furthermore their works benefited Christians. Reuchlin offers the earliest bibliographical scheme for Jewish books, going from most authoritative to least authoritative.
Holy Scripture – This carries the highest authority.
Talmud – Reuchlin makes no mention of the Mishnah nor does mention the Oral Law. He simply views the Talmud as exegesis on the Bible. As a Christian he was not about to lend any extra authority to the Talmud as having any basis in a tradition. This stance, though, also helps when dealing with anti-Christian statements. Reuchlin could argue that such statements were not intrinsic to Judaism.
Kabbalah - This was not something that Pfefferkorn or the Cologne theologians were familiar with. This had more to do with Reuchlin’s interests.
Commentaries – These, Reuchlin points out, are not binding, like the Talmud.
Midrash and Sermons – Reuchlin removes Midrash as a category of series of authority and places it on the same level of medieval sermons. There is no mention of Jewish liturgy.
Philosophy
Poetry, fables – These are deemed by Reuchlin as whimsical. Even the Jews, he claims, do not take them seriously. Reuchlin places the Nizzahon and Toldot Yeshu in this category. He even makes the claim that the Jews forbid these books themselves. Reuchlin may have been a naive sap but a very canny lawyer.
As Yaacov Deutsch argues, this is a period in which Christians, particularly converts, begin to offer descriptions of what Jews do. There is a parallel to the Barcelona debate of 1263. Reuchlin seems to engage in both sides of the Barcelona Debate. Like Nachmonides he tried to limit authority of midrashic literature. On the other hand he wished to give a Christian interpretation of Jewish texts.
(Dr. Shear is the author of the Kuzari and the Shaping of Jewish Identity and the Tea, Lemon, Old Books.)
Stephen G. Burnett – Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s Bibliotheca Rabbinica (1645) and Seventeenth - Century Jewish Bibliography
The Christian Hebraist Jean Plantavit de la Pause’s (1576 – 1651) bibliography of Jewish books, Biblia Rabbinica, is often criticized for repeating the errors of Johannes Buxtorf and adding his own. Plantavit is still valuable as an example of this period where knowledge of Judaism growing because of converts and because of more Judaic libraries. Plantavit lead a dramatic life with two theological careers. He was born into a Hugonaut family and trained as a Protestant theologian. He converted to Catholicism after he already had a degree in theology. Interested in Hebrew, Plantavit studied with Leone Modena. Modena encouraged him to start his own Hebrew library. Modena may have done this out of self interest as he was a book seller. Plantavit also studied under Domenico Gerosolimitano, the converted Jew who served as the chief censor for the Catholic Church. (See Amnon Raz-Krakotzkin’s The Censor, the Editor, and the Text.)
Biblia Rabbinica was intended to replace Buxtorf’s work. Such a bibliography served a Catholic polemical purposes. In a post Index world, Catholics needed a guide as to what books were permitted to read and quote. Plantavit owned over one hundred and eighty books out of eight hundred books he listed. He also owned a copy of the Jerusalem Talmud, even though he does not list it. This book was banned; Plantavit was more interested in telling other people what to read than in following his own advice. While Plantavit had Buxtorf outnumbered by two to one, the younger Johannes Buxtorf put out an updated version of his father’s book five years earlier. This had over a thousand Hebrew books, making Plantavit’s book outdated from the start. Between the two of them, Buxtorf and Plantavit only listed about a quarter of the Hebrew books printed.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Just Say No to Polytheism: Why it is Important to Believe in a Singular Non-Physical Deity (Part III)
Part I, II
My intention is far from picking on Christianity, even pagan Christianity. My real interest and the reason why I am writing this are those Jews who have the hypocrisy to attack Christianity while holding on to doctrines that are equally as problematic as the Trinity or the Incarnation. There is no way easier to have yourself thrown out of the Jewish community, whether it is the Haredi community or the most liberal Reform community than to imply an openness to the Trinity. If this was more than just politics, we would expect equal thoroughness in going after certain other doctrines. These problematic doctrines are closely related to the Jewish mystical tradition, particularly that of Kabbalah. This is not to say that all mysticism or all Kabbalah is bad; statements have to be taken one by one and judged before the bar of monotheism and those that fail must be cast aside.
The early mystical text Shiur Koma (Song of Ascent) was listed by Maimonides as an idolatrous book because it offers measurements of God’s body. For our purpose, it is not enough to reinterpret Shiur Koma as a mystical allegory that is not meant to be taken literally. Our apologist would still have to explain how Shiur Koma serves to spread monotheist ideas more than it does to give people the idea that God has some sort of body, even an elevated preternatural one. If this person really believed that Shiur Koma was just an allegory he would have the good grace to recognize that, as with any explanation that requires more explaining than the thing it is trying to explain, it should be dropped. Thus we can assume that any Jew who actively supports Shiur Koma is either an open or closeted corporalist, thus a pagan, or is demonstrably lacking in proper monotheistic zeal. One way or another, such a person should not be allowed to hold any position of respect and authority within the Jewish community. Just as we would not allow someone who believed that God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, possessed a human body.
There is a whole body of early medieval Jewish mystical literature known as Merkavah texts. These texts deal with ascents into the heavenly realms by the use of various mystical names. They are premised on the notion of the heavens as a realm that can be traversed and that one can even reach the inner sanctum where God “dwells.” While one can reinterpret this as something innocuous, there is no doubting the inescapable premise that the divine realms are a place that can be conquered through the right secret knowledge. The moment you allow this you turn Judaism from a rational ethical religion to a magical and hence a pagan religion.
Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is often blamed for the mass apostasy in Spain. The Guide was quite popular in Spain, but so was the Zohar, a body of mystical texts attributed to Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai and is the main source for the concept of Sephirot. Now I ask you what is more likely to get people to sincerely convert to Christianity, a book like the Guide that takes one of the most hard-line stances imaginable against God being in any way physical or a book like the Zohar that suggests that God might have different parts to him? This is ultimately the same sort of territory opened up by the Trinity. Abraham Abulafia made the argument that the belief in Sephirot was worse than the Trinity as the Christians only had three persons in their godhead and not ten. It is not for nothing that early modern Christian Hebraists were so interested in the Zohar and the concept of Sephirot. If you accept Sephirot than you have no intellectual reason to reject the Trinity. In fact, the Trinity can easily be worked into the Sephirot. God the Father could be the three highest Sephirot, Keter, Chochma, and Binah. The Holy Spirit could be six of the lower Sephirot. Jesus would then be the Sephira of Malchut. Malchut is special because it is the one Sephira that directly interacts with the physical world, a Kabbalistic version of the Incarnation. So what sort of person would support a book like the Zohar? Someone whose primary concern is not defending strict monotheism.
Zoheric concepts are developed into some of their worst features in the thought of Isaac Luria. Luria postulated an elaborate creation story in which the divine vessels were damaged in the very act of creation, leaving human beings with the task of tikkun olam, healing the world. At the heart of this theology are the notions that God is in some sense “imperfect” and in “need” of human aid to make himself perfect once again and that human beings have the power to affect the divine.
While books like Shiur Koma, Merkavah texts, Zohar and the Lurianic corpus are held in high esteem by most in the Haredi world, the group that has done the most to popularize such texts has been Chabad. This makes Chabad a logical target for someone like me who believes that such books, for all intents and purposes, advocate paganism. In addition, Chabad has its own sacred text, Tanya, which features many of the same problems as these other texts. So what do we assume about our Rabbi Eli Brackman, the Chabad rabbi at Oxford mentioned previously? If his interests are really in the realm of ethical monotheism than he would be spending his time trying to pass along the philosophy of Saadiah Gaon, Judah Ha-Levi and Maimonides. He would not be spending his time with Tanya. For that matter why, considering that Chabad has more and more become not just a side issue for Chabad Jews but the central issue of their Judaism, is Rabbi Brackman identifying himself with Chabad? Now Rabbi Brackman has denied having any polytheist intent; this leaves the conclusion that either Rabbi Brackman is just a closeted pagan or that he fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation, a common failing of so-called monotheists.
In conclusion, I admit that I have not offered a thorough discussion of Jewish mysticism nor do I claim to be an expert in the field. This is a more formal version of the challenge that I touched upon earlier and I hope that this could the start of future dialogue. My challenge to Rabbi Brackman or anyone else who wishes to defend Kabbalah in general and Chabad specifically is not whether they can offer acceptable interpretations of the texts in question but whether these texts offer something to ethical monotheism that can justify tolerating them in light of the very obvious heterodox lines of thought inherent to them.
My intention is far from picking on Christianity, even pagan Christianity. My real interest and the reason why I am writing this are those Jews who have the hypocrisy to attack Christianity while holding on to doctrines that are equally as problematic as the Trinity or the Incarnation. There is no way easier to have yourself thrown out of the Jewish community, whether it is the Haredi community or the most liberal Reform community than to imply an openness to the Trinity. If this was more than just politics, we would expect equal thoroughness in going after certain other doctrines. These problematic doctrines are closely related to the Jewish mystical tradition, particularly that of Kabbalah. This is not to say that all mysticism or all Kabbalah is bad; statements have to be taken one by one and judged before the bar of monotheism and those that fail must be cast aside.
The early mystical text Shiur Koma (Song of Ascent) was listed by Maimonides as an idolatrous book because it offers measurements of God’s body. For our purpose, it is not enough to reinterpret Shiur Koma as a mystical allegory that is not meant to be taken literally. Our apologist would still have to explain how Shiur Koma serves to spread monotheist ideas more than it does to give people the idea that God has some sort of body, even an elevated preternatural one. If this person really believed that Shiur Koma was just an allegory he would have the good grace to recognize that, as with any explanation that requires more explaining than the thing it is trying to explain, it should be dropped. Thus we can assume that any Jew who actively supports Shiur Koma is either an open or closeted corporalist, thus a pagan, or is demonstrably lacking in proper monotheistic zeal. One way or another, such a person should not be allowed to hold any position of respect and authority within the Jewish community. Just as we would not allow someone who believed that God, in the person of Jesus of Nazareth, possessed a human body.
There is a whole body of early medieval Jewish mystical literature known as Merkavah texts. These texts deal with ascents into the heavenly realms by the use of various mystical names. They are premised on the notion of the heavens as a realm that can be traversed and that one can even reach the inner sanctum where God “dwells.” While one can reinterpret this as something innocuous, there is no doubting the inescapable premise that the divine realms are a place that can be conquered through the right secret knowledge. The moment you allow this you turn Judaism from a rational ethical religion to a magical and hence a pagan religion.
Maimonides’ Guide to the Perplexed is often blamed for the mass apostasy in Spain. The Guide was quite popular in Spain, but so was the Zohar, a body of mystical texts attributed to Rabbi Shimon b. Yochai and is the main source for the concept of Sephirot. Now I ask you what is more likely to get people to sincerely convert to Christianity, a book like the Guide that takes one of the most hard-line stances imaginable against God being in any way physical or a book like the Zohar that suggests that God might have different parts to him? This is ultimately the same sort of territory opened up by the Trinity. Abraham Abulafia made the argument that the belief in Sephirot was worse than the Trinity as the Christians only had three persons in their godhead and not ten. It is not for nothing that early modern Christian Hebraists were so interested in the Zohar and the concept of Sephirot. If you accept Sephirot than you have no intellectual reason to reject the Trinity. In fact, the Trinity can easily be worked into the Sephirot. God the Father could be the three highest Sephirot, Keter, Chochma, and Binah. The Holy Spirit could be six of the lower Sephirot. Jesus would then be the Sephira of Malchut. Malchut is special because it is the one Sephira that directly interacts with the physical world, a Kabbalistic version of the Incarnation. So what sort of person would support a book like the Zohar? Someone whose primary concern is not defending strict monotheism.
Zoheric concepts are developed into some of their worst features in the thought of Isaac Luria. Luria postulated an elaborate creation story in which the divine vessels were damaged in the very act of creation, leaving human beings with the task of tikkun olam, healing the world. At the heart of this theology are the notions that God is in some sense “imperfect” and in “need” of human aid to make himself perfect once again and that human beings have the power to affect the divine.
While books like Shiur Koma, Merkavah texts, Zohar and the Lurianic corpus are held in high esteem by most in the Haredi world, the group that has done the most to popularize such texts has been Chabad. This makes Chabad a logical target for someone like me who believes that such books, for all intents and purposes, advocate paganism. In addition, Chabad has its own sacred text, Tanya, which features many of the same problems as these other texts. So what do we assume about our Rabbi Eli Brackman, the Chabad rabbi at Oxford mentioned previously? If his interests are really in the realm of ethical monotheism than he would be spending his time trying to pass along the philosophy of Saadiah Gaon, Judah Ha-Levi and Maimonides. He would not be spending his time with Tanya. For that matter why, considering that Chabad has more and more become not just a side issue for Chabad Jews but the central issue of their Judaism, is Rabbi Brackman identifying himself with Chabad? Now Rabbi Brackman has denied having any polytheist intent; this leaves the conclusion that either Rabbi Brackman is just a closeted pagan or that he fails to appreciate the gravity of the situation, a common failing of so-called monotheists.
In conclusion, I admit that I have not offered a thorough discussion of Jewish mysticism nor do I claim to be an expert in the field. This is a more formal version of the challenge that I touched upon earlier and I hope that this could the start of future dialogue. My challenge to Rabbi Brackman or anyone else who wishes to defend Kabbalah in general and Chabad specifically is not whether they can offer acceptable interpretations of the texts in question but whether these texts offer something to ethical monotheism that can justify tolerating them in light of the very obvious heterodox lines of thought inherent to them.
Monday, July 6, 2009
Shabbos at the Oxford Chabad
I spent Shabbos at the Chabad at Oxford and was hosted by Rabbi Eli Brackman. Since I regularly go to the Chabad at Ohio State, I figured that it would make for a fun comparison. Small Jewish world, Rabbi Brackman knows Rabbi Zalman Deitsch of Ohio State. (I wonder if they are, even now, exchanging notes on me. “So who exactly is this Chinn guy and what is his deal?”) There was a guest speaker, Dr. Aharon Giamani of Bar Ilan University in Israel. Dr. Giamani’s field, which he spoke to us about, is in the history of Yemenite Jewry. I was fortunate to be able to speak to him over Shabbos and I am grateful to him for allowing me to hold the conversation in my rather poor conversational Hebrew.
Due to a conversation about Jewish philosophy with one of the Chabad people about, I was presented with the tenth chapter Sha'ar ha-Yichud ve'ha'Emunah in the Tanya, the foundational text of Chabad thought. The essential point of this chapter is that God is one with the sephirot. The analogy used is that of the relationship between the sun and the rays of light it gives off. This may be the medievalist in me, but when I hear the analogy of the unity of the sun and sunlight I think of the classical apology for the Trinity that uses this same analogy. I raised this issue with Rabbi Brackman and he was remarkably non-pulsed about it. He agreed that there was a parallel here and that it was probably written like that on purpose. Rabbi Brackman went on to argue that the difference would be that the Tanya does not take any of this literally. Rabbi Brackman went on point out the basic tenant of Chabad theology that God literally includes everything and that individuality is simply an illusion. I had a similar experience with another Lubavitch person a few years ago who, when I asked him what the difference between the Chabad belief that human souls are literally part of God and the Christians doctrine of the Incarnation beyond the fact that Chabad would multiply the problem billions of times over by turning every human being into their own Jesus Christ. My Lubavitch friend responded that he did not know, but that anyway it was not a problem.
If we are going to go with the classical understandings of Jewish thought as found in Saadiah Gaon, the Kuzari, Maimonides and medieval Jewish anti-Christian polemics, the rejection of the Trinity and the Incarnation are critical parts of Judaism. A Judaism in which one cannot give a coherent reason for rejecting the Trinity and the Incarnation is one in which Jews might as well start lining up to the baptismal font. Yet we have Chabad rabbis nonchalantly throwing around arguments that are almost identical. Put it this way, if what Chabad believes about the nature of God and him being one unified entity with the sephirot and all human souls is not heresy then I do not know of any coherent argument against the acceptance of a classical Christian understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation that will hold water for more than five minutes.
I know people who have or are in middle of converting to Judaism. Last I checked, unless you can give a straightforward NO to the question of whether you believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation with no equivocations or scholastic discourses, you will not be accepted for conversion. This applies equally to the most conservative Satmar court as it does to the Reform movement, making this one of the few things that the entire spectrum of Judaism actually agrees on. Prof. David Berger wishes to argue that Chabad is heresy because of the messianic beliefs held by many in the movement. In truth, it goes much further, into the fundamental doctrines of the movement found in Tanya.
The Lubavitchers that I know, I like and respect for the most part. Considering that I have been living outside of a major Jewish community, dealing with Lubavitch is sort of a practical necessity. I find the implications of Berger’s proposed ban too frightening to seriously consider. That being said, I must admit that it is a real problem.
Shabbos did not end here in the southern part of England until a quarter to eleven at night, so much for doing something on Saturday night. It must strange trying to raise children in such a situation. “Alright kids, go to bed now. Shabbos will be over when you get up in the morning.”
Due to a conversation about Jewish philosophy with one of the Chabad people about, I was presented with the tenth chapter Sha'ar ha-Yichud ve'ha'Emunah in the Tanya, the foundational text of Chabad thought. The essential point of this chapter is that God is one with the sephirot. The analogy used is that of the relationship between the sun and the rays of light it gives off. This may be the medievalist in me, but when I hear the analogy of the unity of the sun and sunlight I think of the classical apology for the Trinity that uses this same analogy. I raised this issue with Rabbi Brackman and he was remarkably non-pulsed about it. He agreed that there was a parallel here and that it was probably written like that on purpose. Rabbi Brackman went on to argue that the difference would be that the Tanya does not take any of this literally. Rabbi Brackman went on point out the basic tenant of Chabad theology that God literally includes everything and that individuality is simply an illusion. I had a similar experience with another Lubavitch person a few years ago who, when I asked him what the difference between the Chabad belief that human souls are literally part of God and the Christians doctrine of the Incarnation beyond the fact that Chabad would multiply the problem billions of times over by turning every human being into their own Jesus Christ. My Lubavitch friend responded that he did not know, but that anyway it was not a problem.
If we are going to go with the classical understandings of Jewish thought as found in Saadiah Gaon, the Kuzari, Maimonides and medieval Jewish anti-Christian polemics, the rejection of the Trinity and the Incarnation are critical parts of Judaism. A Judaism in which one cannot give a coherent reason for rejecting the Trinity and the Incarnation is one in which Jews might as well start lining up to the baptismal font. Yet we have Chabad rabbis nonchalantly throwing around arguments that are almost identical. Put it this way, if what Chabad believes about the nature of God and him being one unified entity with the sephirot and all human souls is not heresy then I do not know of any coherent argument against the acceptance of a classical Christian understanding of the Trinity and the Incarnation that will hold water for more than five minutes.
I know people who have or are in middle of converting to Judaism. Last I checked, unless you can give a straightforward NO to the question of whether you believe in the Trinity or the Incarnation with no equivocations or scholastic discourses, you will not be accepted for conversion. This applies equally to the most conservative Satmar court as it does to the Reform movement, making this one of the few things that the entire spectrum of Judaism actually agrees on. Prof. David Berger wishes to argue that Chabad is heresy because of the messianic beliefs held by many in the movement. In truth, it goes much further, into the fundamental doctrines of the movement found in Tanya.
The Lubavitchers that I know, I like and respect for the most part. Considering that I have been living outside of a major Jewish community, dealing with Lubavitch is sort of a practical necessity. I find the implications of Berger’s proposed ban too frightening to seriously consider. That being said, I must admit that it is a real problem.
Shabbos did not end here in the southern part of England until a quarter to eleven at night, so much for doing something on Saturday night. It must strange trying to raise children in such a situation. “Alright kids, go to bed now. Shabbos will be over when you get up in the morning.”
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Abraham Yagel on Joan of Arc and Merlin
Abraham Yagel (1553-1623) was one of the great Jewish thinkers of the early modern period. In his discussion of prophecy in his book, Bat Rabim, he argued, contrary to the Kuzari, that non Jews could also be prophets. As evidence to this he uses the biblical example of Balaam, but he also brings down the cases Joan of Arc and Merlin. Yagel exerts the reader:
Observe what happened to the seventeen-year-old girl who was a shepherdess during the time of Charles VII, the king of France, who was surrounded by the armies of the English king, which almost took from him [Charles] his entire kingdom. But this young maiden arose, aroused herself from her slumber, gathered her strength, left her flock in the field, went to King Charles, and told him what she told him; the essence of her words was that she desired to lead his armies and to be victorious over his enemies. And the king trusted her word and placed her in charge of his army; and she girded her weaponry and fought the king’s enemies and was victorious over them with great honor. And the chroniclers of the time sang her praises as if she were skilled in war from her youth and knew her enemy’s strategy in war.
And who would believe the account of the child born in England named Merlin, who revealed future events and secret things and who transcribed in a document before the kings and nobles all that would happen to them in the end of days, in addition to all the incredible feats he accomplished in the days of his youth, which were recorded in the chronicles of that kingdom. (David Ruderman, Kabbalah, Magic and Science pg. 86)
During the sixteenth and seventeenth century there was a widespread interest in the prophecies of Merlin, particularly in England, and there were many supposed works by him in circulation. (See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic.) The idea that a Jew would hold up a Christian visionary, who in modern times would be made into a saint, as a true prophet is interesting. For Yagel, as with many others during this time period, prophecy was something in nature, to be studied as any other natural phenomenon, and hence was universally applicable and could be achieved by anyone. (He obviously rejected the view of the Kuzari that prophecy was a genetic trait, which only Jews possessed.) This is not really that different from Pope Clement VII being willing to accept Shlomo Molcho as a prophet. It is all in keeping with the eclectic and often strangely ecumenical mystical theological scientific worldview of early modern Europe.
Observe what happened to the seventeen-year-old girl who was a shepherdess during the time of Charles VII, the king of France, who was surrounded by the armies of the English king, which almost took from him [Charles] his entire kingdom. But this young maiden arose, aroused herself from her slumber, gathered her strength, left her flock in the field, went to King Charles, and told him what she told him; the essence of her words was that she desired to lead his armies and to be victorious over his enemies. And the king trusted her word and placed her in charge of his army; and she girded her weaponry and fought the king’s enemies and was victorious over them with great honor. And the chroniclers of the time sang her praises as if she were skilled in war from her youth and knew her enemy’s strategy in war.
And who would believe the account of the child born in England named Merlin, who revealed future events and secret things and who transcribed in a document before the kings and nobles all that would happen to them in the end of days, in addition to all the incredible feats he accomplished in the days of his youth, which were recorded in the chronicles of that kingdom. (David Ruderman, Kabbalah, Magic and Science pg. 86)
During the sixteenth and seventeenth century there was a widespread interest in the prophecies of Merlin, particularly in England, and there were many supposed works by him in circulation. (See Keith Thomas, Religion and the Decline of Magic.) The idea that a Jew would hold up a Christian visionary, who in modern times would be made into a saint, as a true prophet is interesting. For Yagel, as with many others during this time period, prophecy was something in nature, to be studied as any other natural phenomenon, and hence was universally applicable and could be achieved by anyone. (He obviously rejected the view of the Kuzari that prophecy was a genetic trait, which only Jews possessed.) This is not really that different from Pope Clement VII being willing to accept Shlomo Molcho as a prophet. It is all in keeping with the eclectic and often strangely ecumenical mystical theological scientific worldview of early modern Europe.
Tuesday, August 19, 2008
A Proper Jewish Education
David ibn Yahya (1465-1543) was a Spanish exile who went to Naples and served as a Talmud teacher. In addition to Talmud, he also taught a variety of other topics. He offered the following description of the curriculum he taught.
In addition, I studied with them a daily chapter of Talmud, and other subjects such as grammar and poetics and logic and [al-Ghazali’s] Intentions of the Philosophers and [Jediah Bedersi’s] Book of the Examination of the World. And on the Shabbaths [I would] sometimes teach [Judah ha-Levi’s] Kuzari and at times [Maimonides’] Guide for the Perplexed. And all this, even though I was only required to teach one Talmudic lesson every morning, in order that they should know what is required, and to rule on what they ask me each day. But in order to fulfil(l) what is required of me by heaven and by the people, I went beyond my [required] quota, with great effort and painful labor. (Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy pg. 148-49.)
Ibn Yahya viewed the teaching of philosophy as a requirement from heaven, alongside the teaching of Talmud. Not only that but the philosophers in his curriculum included not only Jewish philosophers like Judah ha-Levi, Maimonides and Jediah Bedersi, but also the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali. Ibn Yahya’s use of al-Ghazali and his use of the Intentions of the Philosophers in particular was not an anomaly with the Spanish Jewish tradition; he formed a basic part of the Jewish philosophical educational system. (See Steven Harvey “Why Did Fourteenth-Century Jews Turn to AlGhazali’s Account of Natural Science?” JQR XCI(2001): pg. 359-76)
In addition, I studied with them a daily chapter of Talmud, and other subjects such as grammar and poetics and logic and [al-Ghazali’s] Intentions of the Philosophers and [Jediah Bedersi’s] Book of the Examination of the World. And on the Shabbaths [I would] sometimes teach [Judah ha-Levi’s] Kuzari and at times [Maimonides’] Guide for the Perplexed. And all this, even though I was only required to teach one Talmudic lesson every morning, in order that they should know what is required, and to rule on what they ask me each day. But in order to fulfil(l) what is required of me by heaven and by the people, I went beyond my [required] quota, with great effort and painful labor. (Robert Bonfil, Rabbis and Jewish Communities in Renaissance Italy pg. 148-49.)
Ibn Yahya viewed the teaching of philosophy as a requirement from heaven, alongside the teaching of Talmud. Not only that but the philosophers in his curriculum included not only Jewish philosophers like Judah ha-Levi, Maimonides and Jediah Bedersi, but also the Muslim philosopher al-Ghazali. Ibn Yahya’s use of al-Ghazali and his use of the Intentions of the Philosophers in particular was not an anomaly with the Spanish Jewish tradition; he formed a basic part of the Jewish philosophical educational system. (See Steven Harvey “Why Did Fourteenth-Century Jews Turn to AlGhazali’s Account of Natural Science?” JQR XCI(2001): pg. 359-76)
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