[Avodah] Torah limud: theoretical/academic versus lishma/yirat hashem/emunat chachamim

[Michael Makovi]

Was:
[Avodah] Does God Change His Mind?

The first half of this post is quotation from the previous thread
(which I have tried to trim; previously, 2/3 of this post was
quotation. Following that is my reply.

> R' Micha wrote:
>RYGB wrote:
>: I would find it difficult to reply to someone who states "*I*
>: disagree" with the Rambam, RSRH et al.
>RMS shared what I believe is roughly the same sentiment when he wrote:
>: I find it difficult to reply to one who 'disagrees' with the Ari ZT'L.

> R' Micha wrote

> Detour into the matter of emunas chakhamim....

> There is something I'll call the Sinai Culture. Because nisqatnu
> hadoros, in general members of later eras, products of more
> dislocations since Moshe Rabbeinu a"h, have less of it. It's not a
> matter of book knowledge as much as having the perspective, priorities
> and etire gestalt. It's very much a culture, not a library.

> The nearest any of us get to recreating that culture is the talmud
> chakham. This is the concept chareidim call "da'as Torah", but the
> basic idea is that Torah study changes how one perceives the world.
> And the notion stands whether or not one buys into the consequences
> chareidim feel da'as Torah implies.

> See also
> <http://www.aishdas.org/asp/2007/02/midgets-on-the-shoulders-of-giants.shtml>

> Thus, it takes a certain amount of caution when inserting oneself into
> the question of the authenticity of Zoharic Qabbalah. Knowing data is
> insufficient if one really doesn't have the same instinctive sense of
> what Torah "feels like".

(R' Micha is referencing my thread [Avodah] Kabbalah's Legitimacy)

>  Michael Makovi wrote:
>  : You'll also be hard-pressed to find a scholar who accepts that Daniel
>  : was not written in the Hashmonean era. I mean only that this defense
>  : cuts both ways. If you try to appeal to disputed authorship of an
>  : apocryphal(-like) mystical work, you've exposed yourself.
>
>  : In any case, I haven't yet found a scholar who can seriously
>  : distinguish between Daniel on the other hand, and the other
>  : apocryphal/apocalyptic works on the other, without simply resorting to
>  : mesorah....

> R' Micha wrote:
>  Who cares what scholars think? It's like taking proof from Apocrypha.
>  In both cases one may have access to information, but people who know
>  the Sinai weltenschaung deemed it irrelevent.
>
>  This is a major blunder C inherited/adopted from the Historical
>  School. This confusion of academia, where the goal is to know
>  something well through staying apart from it, objective, as opposed to
>  talmud Torah where the goal is to internalize the study and bedavka
>  learn how to understand it from within.

> Mikha'el Makovi wrote
>  : We've got mesorah that Daniel is kosher and the other works
>  : are not, and otherwise, the two are difficult to distinguish...

> R' Micha wrote:
>  Which simply /proves/ that we lack the basic feel to make a
>  determination Chazal did make. Rather than play down the distinction,
>  instead one must take caution at this proof of my lack of proper
>  perspective.
>
>  (WADR to people you tend to cite, R' Hertz, REB, and now Prof Urbach
>  do not engender that kind of emunas chakhamim in me. I am not playing
>  down their knowledge. I am speaking only of my ability to perceive the
>  kind of internalization that Abayei and R' Papa discuss that one can
>  perceive in RYBS, RMF, the SR, the LR, my rebbe... People who made
>  their life's mission not academic study of the Torah but its
>  internalization. R' Hertz did both, but his stature is in the academic
>  sphere. But besach hakol, your choice of sources often makes me feel
>  like you're talking cross-purposes with the rest of the chevrah.)

I think the problem we have is you have made the academic and Torah
approaches mutually exclusive. You seem to hold that either one
approaches everything objectively and theoretically, OR he approaches
it from a Torah perspective of lishma and yirat hashem and emunat
chachamim.

However, I do not find the two mutually exclusive.

Rabbi David Bigman of Maale Gilboa in an article
(http://www.myjewishlearning.com/texts/talmud/Gemara/ModernStudy/BigmanCritical.htm)
proposes a certain amount of academic Talmud study in the beit
midrash. He criticizes the academic community, however, because they
make it totally theoretical, and never ask how it ought to affect my
mitzvah observance. I'm not sure, but I think the point he is making
may be the one I am about to make:

The fact is that there is a great amount of academic knowledge
available today that simply was not available in the past, period.
Today, then, we cannot simply ignore it, but rather, we must confront
it and deal with it one way or the other. This, I think, is what Rav
Hertz et al. did; being an observant Jew does not mean ignoring the
academic information, and being an academic doesn't mean that he
doesn't believe in Sinai and keep halacha. The two can be mutually
exclusive, but don't have to be.

Believe you me, if I wanted pure intellectual stimulation, I'd be in
university in America studying computer science, chemistry,
bioinformatics, and biology in English. So why am I instead studying
today keshira and tefira with Rambam, Ritva, Rif, Rosh, etc. in Hebrew
in Israel, followed by a heady dose of Rav Hirsch on chumash? I'll
tell you what, it's not because it's the most intellectually enjoyable
activity for me. Why on earth am I studying Torah? Why on earth am I
in Israel of all places? Because that's how I serve G-d, because
that's where I'm supposed to be and that's what I'm supposed to be
doing.

So when I bring Rav Hertz, REB, and Prof. Urbach, it's not because I'm
a secular academic specializing in Talmudic-era homiletics. It's
because I fear G-d, and I want to learn His Torah, and like it or not,
the fact is that (IMHO) there are certain aspects of this Torah
elucidated by academic knowledge and/or those with an academic
perspective/method. In fact, for example, after a few years in
yeshiva, I want to learn the academic aspects of Torah in a place like
Bar Ilan, not to get a degree, but purely lishma. My degree will
probably be in bioinformatics; the Torah part will be lishma l'zulato.

And so what I say is at cross-purposes with the chevrah insofar as
this above hashkafah is at cross-purposes.

Mikha'el Makovi